'.^^: 





aass-EJjiajSL 

Book__ ^ ' 




#/. 



OO 



WHAT WAS HE? 



^ / ^ OR, 

jcsus in the Light of the Nineteenth Century, 



;^|^^^^^^^^^i^^ Iffiiil ^ 




BY 

WILLIAM DENTON. 




\ 



WHAT WAS HE? 



0B| 






JESUS IN THE LIGHT OF THE NINETEENTH 

CENTURY. 



/ 



1' 



i^ 




WILLIAM DENTOl: 



AUTHOR OP " SOUL OF THINGS," " OUR PLANET," *' GENESIS 
AND GEOLOGY," ETC. 



WELLES LEY, 

NEAR boston: 

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DENTON. 
1877. 






Copyright, 1877, 
By WILLIAMDENTON". 



STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 

117 Fbanklin Street, 

Boston. 




PEEFAOE. 



About five or six years ago I coinmence(i to make an 
analysis of the Gospels, and write my ideas of Jesus. 
After some work had been done, the possibility of obtain- 
ing assistance from psychometry suggested itself; and IVIrs. 
Denton undertook a series of psychometric examinations 
of specimens from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Egypt, &c., for 
that purpose, and to elucidate, if possible, those mysteries 
that have gathered around the Hfe of the Nazarene, and 
have hitherto baffled the vision of every eye. 

What she obtained was so strange, in many respects 
contrary to our previous ideas, and yet at the same time 
so simple and natural, so much in harmony with the Gos- 
pel accounts, and yet with the operation of natural law, 
that we thought it best for her to write out in full a life 
of Jesus, embracing the facts that documents furnish and 
that psj^chometry reveals. But this, we find, is a work of 
years ; and such a work could not well include the critical 
remarks on Jesus and the Gospels which appear to be 
necessary to remove the extravagant ideas about them 
that are entertained by Christians generally. 

This volume presents some of the conclusions arrived at 
by a study of the Gospel accounts of Jesus, and gives a 
faint outhne of what psychometry reveals regarding his 
parentage, life, and resurrection ; leaving the complete por- 
trait for a future time. 

1 



2 PBEFACE. 

That ps^'chometry can reveal what is hidden from the 
I)h3'sical eye^ and concealed from human knowledge, is in- 
dicated b}^ the discover}' of one of the satelhtes of Mars 
more than eight 3'ears ago ; ^ of the animal origin of petro- 
leum when it was first found in abundance in Penns3iva- 
nia ; ^ of the mode of burial practised by the Swiss lake- 
dwellers ; ^ of the existence of gallinaceous birds in the 
vallc}^ of the Dordogne in the paleolithic age,^ — all of 
which were unl^nown at the time of our disco ver^'. 

The abihty of mankind to read the i)ast with accuracy 
increases every day. We know more about the lake- 
dwellers of Switzerland and Northern Italy than the 
Romans, who were two thousand 3'ears nearer to them ; 
we are better acquainted with the ancient historj' of Egj'pt 
than the best-informed Eg^-ptian in the time of Ptolemy 
Philadelphus. We are able to-da}' to write a better, because 
a more truthful, history of Jesus, than an}' evangehst has 
written, because we know more about him, and, from our 
superior knowledge of nature, can form a better judgment 
from what we do know. German and English criticism 
has delivered us from all belief in the infalhbility and 
supernatm^al character of the Scripture-records, and left 
them free for our investigation and comparison. Mesmer- 
ism, phrenolog}", ps}' chometr}', and spirituahsm, within the 
last fifty years, have shed a flood of light upon the nature of 
man, and ahnost infinitely enlarged our ideas of his possi- 
bihties. What men in their ignorance attributed to gods 
and heaven-created angels we have learned is accom- 
phshed b}' human beings in and out of the body ; and we 
are thus able to solve, b}' the light of the nineteenth cen- 
tmy, questions that have baffied millions, and make clear 
what time had apparently obscured forever. 

1 Soul of Things, vol. iii. p. 128. 2 ibid., vol. i. p. 227. 

8 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 306. * Ibid., voL ii* i>. 346. 



PREFACE. 3 

It is just to state, that, though I have had much assist- 
ance from Mrs. Denton, she is not responsible for any 
ideas in this vohime involving the operation of the spirits 
of departed human beings ; nor is she responsible for all 
of the ideas advanced in the sketch of the life of Jesus 
gi^'en in the latter part of this volume. Admitting the 
Gospel accounts to be generally true, I have endeavored 
to show that the occurrences may be readil}^ accounted for 
without recourse to the miraculous, without impugning the 
motives of the evangehsts, and without supposing Jesus to 
have been either a god or an impostor. This has led me 
in several instances to depart from conclusions which 
have been received ps3'chometricall3', and that appear to 

us to be correct. 

WILLIAM DENTOJ^. 

Wellesley, Oct. 9, 1877. 



OOK"TEl!fTS. 



PAGE 

PREFACE 3 

INTRODUCTION 7 

CHAPTER I. 
How THE Gospels were composed •••••• 11 

CHAPTER n. 
Jesus an Enthusiast 80 

CHAPTER in. 
Jesus a Claikvoyant . • 156 

CHAPTER IV. 
Jesus a Natural Healer 160 

CHAPTER V. 
Miracles of Jesus 169 

CHAPTER VI. 
Jesus a Spiritual JVIedium • 178 

CHAPTER Vn. 
The Character of Jesus ..•••••. 187 

CHAPTER Vm. 
The Mistakes of Jesus • 198 

CHAPTER IX. 

Sketch of the Life of Jesus 208 

5 



WHAT WAS HE? 

OR, 

JESTJS IN THE LIGHT Of THE NINETEENTH CENTTJEY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

But few men have dwelt upon our planet, whose 
names have been so frequently mentioned, or whose 
characters have been so lauded, as the name and 
character of Jesus have been. About three hundred 
millions of living^ men and women reo^ard him as 
their Lord, and speak of him as the Saviour.^ The 
hymns sung in his honor, in our Christian churches, 
indicate the popular estimate of him in our own 
country. In them we find such expressions as 

these : — 

" Dearest of all the names above, 
My Jesus and my God ! '* ^ 

" Jesus, the name high over all 
In earth or hell or sky I *' 

Of him it is affirmed, — 

" By his own power were all things made ; 
By him supported all things stand : 
He is the whole creation's head, 
And angels fly at his command." 

1 Johnson's Physical Atlas gives the number of Christian believ- 
ers on the globe as three hundred and forty millions. 

2 Watts's ^Eymns, 

7 



8 WHAT WAS HE ? 

He is dearer to many Christians than even God, and 
much more highly extolled : — 

" Till God in human flesh I see, 
My thoughts no comfort find : 
The holy, just, and sacred Three 
Are terrors to my mind." 

Should these be regarded as mere poetic fancies, 
we have to the same effect the sober language of the 
evangelical creeds. In the Methodist Discipline we 
find him styled "the very and eternal God; "and 
the Athanasian Creed of the Episcopal Church de- 
clares him to be perfect God and perfect man. Some 
Unitarian and Universalist Christians regard him as 
a super-angelic being, who came from heaven in 
obedience to the will of God, '' to bless men by 
turning them from their iniquities;" while others 
merely regard him as the noblest human being that 
our planet has produced, and a model man for the 
race. Let us, who believe that reason should be 
exercised in religion as in business and science, in- 
quire who was Jesus, and what relation he sustains 
to us. 

That Jesus reall}^ existed, the Acts of the Apostles, 
and those Epistles of Paul that the most sceptical 
are compelled to acknowledge as genuine, — those 
to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians,^ — pre- 
sent very strong evidence. Paul, who was born 
but a few years after Jesus,^ who was educated at 

1 Taylor^s Diegesis, p. 270 ; Henan's Apostles, p. 35. 

2 The date of the birth of Paul has been iDlaced by critics at from 
A. D. 1 to A. D. 12 : the latter date is probably near the truth. In 
Acts vii. 58 he is called a young man : if he was twenty then, he was 
bom about A. D. 13. 



JESUS REALLY EXISTED. 9 

Jerusalem,^ was at one time a persecutor of the 
Christians, and, when a believer, acquainted with 
the brother of Jesus,^ and a companion of those who 
had been his disciples,^ could not fail to have known 
whether Jesus had an actual existence. How other- 
wise can we account for his conversion from Judaism 
to what must have been a very unpopular faith, the 
profession and zealous advocacy of which subjected 
him to great persecution ? 

There is a naturalness about many portions of the 
life of Jesus as related by the evangelists, espe- 
cially the first three, that proves the genuineness of 
the man whose words and deeds they narrate. The 
treachery of Judas, the denial of Peter, and the 
personal jealousies of the disciples, would hardl}^ 
have been inserted had these been fictitious narra- 
tives. What but the facts could have induced the 
writer in Matthew to tell us that the last utterance 
of his dying Messiah was the despairing cry, " My 
God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" that, 
when the disciples saw Jesus after his resurrection, 
some of them doubted ? or Luke to inform us, that 
when the women told the disciples after the resur- 
rection what they had seen and heard, " their words 
seem to them as idle tales"? The agony in the 
garden never would have been told if it had not 
occurred; for it betrays weakness on the part of 
Jesus that no fiction-writer would attribute to his 
hero. The prophecy of the speedy coming of the 

1 Acts xxii. 3 states that Paul was brought up in Jerusalem at 
tlie feet of Gamaliel. 

2 Gal. i. 19. 3 Gal. i. 18. 



10 WHAT WAS HE? 

Son of man in the clouds of heaven wonld never 
have been written if it had not been said; for the 
Gospel of Matthew was composed after the time for 
its fulfilment. 

The life of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels is 
not such a one as persons writing fiction would be 
likely to draw. Most of the so-called Messianic 
prophecies led the Jews to expect a temporal prince, 
sitting on the throne of David, and establishing it 
forever. He was to subdue the Gentiles ; their kings 
and queens were to bow in humility before him. 
The Messiah shining like a sun from the throne of 
his glory in Zion, all peoples were to hasten with 
their offerings, and bless themselves in his beams. 
A suffering, dying Messiah, a few persons believed 
in, but very few Jews have ever been willing to accept. 
The tree of Christianity never flourished in Jewish 
soil : only when trimmed and transplanted did it at- 
tain its world-wide dimensions. 

But, although we may be satisfied that Jesus of 
Nazareth really existed, it does not follow that we 
are to accept as fact all that the Gospels say of him ; 
indeed, it is impossible that we should. A critical 
examination of these Gospels, almost our only literary 
sources for a life of Jesus, soon modifies the ideas 
generally entertained with regard to them. We learn 
that they were not only not infallibly inspired, but 
not even independently composed ; and we can dis- 
cover some of the motives that governed the writers 
in choosing the materials that lay before them when 
they were compiled. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE GOSPELS WERE COIMPOSED. 

When the events and discourses related in the 
first Gospel, and contained in any other Gospel, are 
numbered in the order of their occurrence, and com- 
pared with their order in the other Gospels, seme 
interesting and important facts are revealed to us. 

OEDER OF PASSAGES CONTAINING EVENTS AND DIS- 
COUPvSES AS RELATED BY MATTHEW. 

1. Genealogy of Jesus, Matt. 1. 1-17. 

2. Miraculous conception of Jesus, i. 18. 

3. Birth of Jesus, i. 25. 

4. Residence in Nazareth, ii. 23. 

5. Advent of John Baptist, iii. 1. 

6. Prophecy of Esaias concerning John, iii. 3. 

7. Eaiment of John, iii. 4. 

8. Those who went out to John, iii. 5.. 

9. People baptized by John, iii. 6. 

10. What John said to some who came to be baptized, iii. 7-10. 

11. One mightier than John, iii. 11. 

12. Baptism of Jesus by John, iii. 13-17. 

13. Spirit of God descends on Jesus as a dove, and voice is 

heard, iii. IG, 17. 

14. Jesus in the wilderness tempted of the Devil, iv. 1. 

15. Tempter wishes him to make the stones bread, iv. 2-4. 

16. Devil sets him on a pinnacle of the temple, iv. 5-7. 

17. Takes him on to a high mountain, iv. 8-10. 

18. The Devil leaves him, iv. 11. 

19. Angels minister to him, iv. 11. 

U 



12 WHAT WAS HE? 

20. John cast into prison, iv. 12. 

21. Jesus returns to Galilee, iv. 12. 

22. Leaves Nazareth, and goes to Capernaum, iv. 13. 

23. Jesus begins to preach, iv. 17. 

24. Calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John, iv. 18-21. 

25. Jesus preaching in the synagogues of Galilee, iv. 23. 
28. Where the people went from that followed him, iv. 25. 

27. Seimon on the Mount, v.-vii. chapters. 

28. The beatitudes, v. 3-12. 
2D. Salt lost its saltness, v. 13. 

30. Candle not to be put under a bushel, v. 15. 

31. No jot or tittle to pass from the law, v. 17, 18. 

32. Agree with thine adversary quickly, v. 25, 26. 

33. Pluck out the offending eye,^ v. 29, 30. 

34. On divorce, v. 31, 32. 

35. Non-resistance, and love to enemies, v. 38-48. 
33. The Lord's Prayer, vi. 9-13. 

37. Prayer and forgiveness, vi.. 14, 15. 

38. Treasure in heaven, vi. 19-21. 

39. Eye, the light of the body, vi. 22, 23. 

40. No man can serve two masters, vi. 24. 

41. No thought to be given about the future, vi. 25-34. 

42. Judge not, vii. 1. 

43. With the measure meted it shall be measured, vii. 2. 

44. Mote in the brother's eye, vii. 3-5. 

45. Ask, and it shall be given you, vii. 7-11. 

46. The Golden Rule, vii. 12. 

47. The strait gate, vii. 13, 14. 

48. Trees known by their fruits, vii. 16-20. 

49. Those who cry " Lord, Lord 1 '' vii. 21, 22. 

50. Sentence on the workers of iniquity, vii. 23. 

51. The rocky foundation and the sandy foundation, vii. 

24-29. 

52. Cure of a leper, viii. 2-4. 

53. Centurion's servant healed, viii. 5-13. 

51. Many sit with Abraham, &c., children of the kingdom 
cast out, viii. 11, 12. 

1 This is repeated, with a slight change, xviii. 8, 9. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 13 

55. Cure of Peter's wife's mother, viii. 1-1, 15. 

53. Devils cast out of possessed, and sick healed, viii. 10. 

57. Commandment to fjo to the other side of the lake, viii. 18. 

58. Scribe says he ^Yill follow Jesus, viii. 10, 20. 

50. Disciple asks leave to bury his father, viii. 21, 22. 

GO. Jesus stills the tempest, viii. 24-23. 

Gl. Heals two^ demoniacs, and destroys swine, viii. 28-32. 

62. Returns to western side of the Sea of Galilee, ix. 1. 

G3. Cure of man sick of the palsy, ix. 2-7. 

G4. Call of Matthev/, ix. 9. 

G5. Feast in Matthew's house, ix. 10. 

G3. Scribes and Pharisees complain, and Jesus answers, ix. 11. 

G7. Why disciples of Jesus fast not, ix. 14, 15. 

G8. New cloth and new wine, ix. 13, 17. 

GO. Raising of Jairus's dau^'hter, ix. 18-25. 

70. AYoman cured by touching garment of Jesus, ix. 20-22. 

71. Cure of a dumb man, ix. C2, 33. 

72. Casts out devils through the prince of devils, ix. 34. 

73. Jesus went about teaching, ix. 35. 

74. Jesus compassionates multitude, ix. 33. 

75. Harvests plenteous, laborers few, ix. 37, 38. 
73. Call of the twelve, x. 1. 

77. Power given to disciples to cast out unclean spirits, and 

cure diseases, x. 1. 

78. Names of the twelve apostles, x. 2-4. 

70. Twelve apostles sent to preach and heal, x. 5-8. 

80. Instructions given to disciples, x. 0-15. 

81. Disciples lambs among wolves, x. 13. 

82. Disciples delivered up to councils, and brought before gov- 

ernors, X. 17, 18. 

83. No thought to be taken about what is to be sjpoken, x. 

10, 20. 

84. Persecutions foretold, x. 21, 22. 

85. Whom to fear, x. 23-31. 

83. Confessing and denying Jesus, x. 32, 33. 

87. Jesus did not come to bring peace, x. 34-36. 

88. Taking the cross, x. 38. 

1 In Mark and Luke but one. 



14 WHAT WAS HE? 

89. Finding and losing life, x. 39. 

90. Eeceiving me, and receiving him that sent me, x. 40. 

91. Cuj) of cold water given to a little one, x. 42. 

92. John sends disciples to Jesus, xi. 2-6. 

93. Jesus gives his opinion of John, xi. 7-14. 

94. Law and the prophets till John, xi. 13. 

95. Children sitting in the markets, xi. 16-19. 
98. Woe to Chorazin and Bethsaida, xi. 20-24. 

97. Thanksgiving to the Father, xi. 25, 26. 

98. All things delivered unto the Son, xi. 27. 

99. Plucking ears of corn on the sabbath, xii. 1-8. 

100. The withered hand restored, xii. 10-13. 

101. Pharisees counsel to destroy Jesus, xii. 14. 

102. He withdraws, xii. 15. 

103. One possessed and blind and dumb healed, xii. 22, 23. 

104. Conversation about Beelzebub, xii. 24-30. 

105. Sin against the Holy Ghost, xii. 31, 32. 
103. Tree is known by his fruit, xii. 33. 

107. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, 

xii. 34. 

108. Good and evil men bring out good and evil treasure, xii. 

35. 

109. The sign of Jonas, xii. 38-41. 

110. The unclean spirit returning, xii. 43-45. 

111. Jesus' mother and his brethren, xii. 46-50. 

112. Multitudes gathered to hear Jesus, xiii. 1. 

113. Parable of the sower, xiii. 3-23. 

114. Parable of the mustard-seed, xiii. 31, 32. 

115. Parable of the leaven, xiii. 33. 

116. Jesus did not speak without a parable, xiii. 34. 

117. Eeception of Jesus at ISTazareth, xiii. 54-58. 

118. Herod hears of Jesus, xiv. 1. 

119. Death of John Baptist, xiv. 3-12. 

120. Jesus goes by ship to a desert place, xiv. 13. 

121. The feeding of five thousand, xiv. 15-21. 

122. Jesus goes on to a mountain alone, xiv. 23. 

123. Walking on the sea, xiv. 24-33. 

124. Cures performed in Gennesaret, xiv. 34-36. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 16 

125. Why the disciples did not wash when they ate, xv. 1-9. 

126. AVhat defiles a man, xv. 10-20. 

127. Blind leaders of the blind, xv. 14. 

128. Jesus goes into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, xv. 21. 

129. Cures the daughter of a woman of Canaan, xv. 22-28. 

130. Goes near the Sea of Galilee, xv. 29. 

131. Feeds four thousand, xv. 32-38. 

132. Goes into the coast of Magdala, xv. 39. 

133. A sign sought, xvi. 1. 

134. The weather, and the signs of the times, xvi. 2, 3. 

135. Sign of the prophet Jonas, xvi. 4. 

136. Leaven of the Pharisees, xvi. 6-12. 

137. Peter's profession of faith, xvi. 13-19. 

138. Death and resurrection foretold, xvi. 21. 

139. Rebuke of Jesus and Peter, xvi. 22, 23. 

140. Those who come after Jesus must deny themselves, xvi. 

24-26. 

141. Some not taste of death till kingdom of God come, xvi. 28. 

142. Transfiguration, xvii. 1-8. 

143. John Baptist, Elias, xvii. 10, 13. 

144. Cure of a lunatic, xvii. 14-18. 

145. Power of faith, xvii. 20. 

146. Passion foretold, xvii. 22, 23. 

147. Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? xviii. 1-5. 

148. Woe to him who offends a little one, xviii. 6. 

149. Woe because of offences, xviii. 8, 9. 

150.1 Cut off offending hand, pluck out offending eye, xviii. 8, 9. 

151. Parable of lost sheep, xviii. 12, 13. 

152. Treatment of an ofcending brother, xviii. 15, 22. 

153. Jesus goes into the coasts of Judaea, xix. 1. 

154. Pharisees ask if it is lawful to put away a wife, xix. 3-9. 

155. Jesus blesses little children, xix. 13, 14. 

156. Young man inquiring, xix. 16-22. 

157. No rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven, xix. 23. 

158. Promises to the disciples, xix. 27-29. 

159. Jesus foretells his death and resurrection the third time, 

XX. 17-19. 

1 150 is 33 with but a slight change. 



16 WHAT WAS HE ? 

160. Eequest that James and John may sit on the right and 

left of JesQS, XX. 20-24. 

161. Disciples to be milike the princes of the Gentiles, xx. 25-28. 

162. Cure of two ^ blind men near Jericho, xx. 30-34. 

163. Jesus enters Jerusalem, xxi. 1-11. 

16-1. Casts buyers and sellers out of the temple, xxi. 12, 13. 

165. Lodges in Bethany, xxi. 17. 

166. Curses the barren fig-tree, xxi. 19, 20. 

167. Faith can remove a mountain, xxi. 22. 

168. All things may be received by prayer and faith, xxi. 22. 
160. Jesus ashed for his authority, xxi. 23-27. 

170. Householder and vineyard, xxi. 33-4?.. 

171. The stone that the builders rejected, xxi. 42-44. 

172. Chief priests and Pharisees seek to take Jesus, xxi. 45,46. 

173. The marriage-supper, xxii. 1-14. 

174. The tribute-money, xxii. 15-22. 

175. The state of the risen, xxii. 23-33. 

176. The great commandment, xxii. 35-40. 

177. David's son and David's Lord, xxii. 42-45. 

178. They durst not ask him any question, xxii. 46. 

179. Denunciation of the Pharisees, xxiii. 1-36. 

180. Apostrophe of Jesus to Jerusalem, xxiii. 37-39. 

181. Second coming of Jesus, xxiv. 

182. Parable of the talents, xxv. 14-30. 

183. Passover near, xxvi. 1, 2. 

184. Jews conspire against Jesus, xxvi. 3-5. 

185. Jesus anointed, xxvi. 6-13. 

186. Judas agrees to betray Jesus, xxvi. 14-16. 

187. Last supper, xxvi. 17-29. 

Most of these are contained in the second Gospel ; 
but the order is in many cases different. 

OEDEH OF EVENTS AKD DISCOURSES AS RELATED 

IN MARK. 
No. Cliap. Verse. No. Chap. Verse. No. Chap. Verse. 

5. i. 1-4. 7. i. 6. 13. i. 10, 11. 

6. i. 3. 11. i. 7, 8. 14. i. 12, 13. 
8. i. 5. 12. i. 9. 19. i. 13. 

1 In Mark and Luke but one. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 



17 



No. Chap. 

20. 

21. 

23. 

24. 



a. 



2 b. 

8 c. 

4(1. 

55. 
56. 

25. 

52. 

63. ii. 

64. ii. 

65. ii. 

66. ii. 

67. ii. 

68. ii. 
99. ii. 

100. iii. 

101. iii. 

102. iii. 
26. iii. 

76. iii. 

77. iii. 

78. iii. 



Verse. 

14. 

14. 

14. 

16-20. 

21. 

22. 

23-28. 

29. 

30, 31. 

32-34. 

35. 

36-38. 

39. 

40-45. 

3-12. 

14. 

15. 

16, 17. 

18-20. 

21, 22. 

23-28. 

1-5. 

6. 

7. 

7,8. 

13, 14. 

15. 

16-19. 



No. 

104. 
105. 
111. 
112. 
113. 

30. 

43. 
114. 
116. 

57. 

60. 

61. 

62 

69. 

70. 
117. 

77. 

79. 

118. 
119. 
eh. 
120. 
121. 
122. 
123. 
124. 
125. 



Chap, 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 

V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 

vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vii. 



Verse. 

22-27. 

28, 29. 

31-35. 

1. 

3-20. 

21. 

24. 

31, 32. 

33, 34. 

35. 

37-41. 

1-17. 

21. 

22-43. 

25-34. 

1-6. 

7. 

8-11. 

12, 13. 

14-16. 

17-29. 

30. 

32. 

35-44. 

46. 

47-51. 

53-56. 

1-13. 



No. 
126. 
128. 
129. 
130. 
131. 
132. 
133. 
136. 
137. 
138. 
139. 
140. 
141. 
142. 
143. 
144. 
146. 
147. 

91. 
148. 
150. 
129. 
153. 
154. 
155. 

156. 



Chap. 

vii. 

vii. 

vii. 

vii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

ix. 

X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 



Verse. 

14-23. 

24. 

25-30. 

31. 

1-9. 

10. 

11, 12. 

13-21. 

27-30. 

31. 

32, 33. 

34-38. 

1. 

2-10. 

11-13. 

14-29. 

31. 

33-37. 

38, 39. 

41. 

42. 

43-48. 

50. 

1. 

2-12. 

13-16. 

15. 

17-22. 



la. 
2b. 
3 c. 

4d. 

81l. 
9 1. 



10 



Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. 

The people astonished at liis doctrine. 

Man with an unclean spirit. 

Out of the synagogue into Simon's house. 

Jesus went into a solitary place. 

People wish him to return: necessity to preach in other places. 

Disciples went out preaching and healing. 

Apostles told Jesus what they had done. 

One casting out devils in the name of Jesus. 

Kingdom of God to be received as a little child. 



18 WHAT WAS HE? 



No. 


Chap 


. Verse. 


Ko 


. Chap. Verse. 


No. Chap 


. Verse. 


157. 


X. 


23-27. 


37. 


xi. 


25, 26. 


Ik. xii. 


41-44. 


158. 


X. 


28-30. 


160. 


xi. 


27-33. 


181. xiii. 


1-8. 


159. 


X. 


32-34. 


170. 


xii. 


1-9. 


82. xiii. 


9. 


160. 


X. 


35-40. 


171. 


xii. 


10, 11. 


83. xiii. 


10, 11. 


161. 


X. 


42-45. 


172. 


xii. 


12. 


84. xiii. 


12, 13. 


162. 


X. 


46-52. 


174. 


xii. 


13-17. 


181. xiii. 


14-37. 


163. 


xi. 


1-11. 


175. 


xii. 


18-27. 


183. xiv. 


1. 


165. 


xi. 


11. 


176. 


xii. 


28-34. 


184. xiv. 


2. 


166. 


xi. 


12-14. 


178. 


xii. 


34. 


185. xiv. 


3-9. 


164. 


xi. 


15. 


177. 


xii. 


35, 36. 


186. xiv. 


3, 10, 11. 


166. 


xi. 


20, 21. 


179. 


xii. 


38-40. 


187. xiv. 


12-25. 


167. 


xi. 


22-24. 













The different order in whicli these are related in 
Mark will be best seen by placing them horizontally. 
The numbers with asterisks indicate where the order 
is the same in both Gospels. 

Mark, *5, *6, 8, 7, *11, *12, *13, *14, *19, *20, *21, , 
*23, *24, a, b, c, d, *55, *56, e, f, 25, 52, *63, *64, *65, ^GG, *67, 
*68, *99, *100, *101, *102, 26, *76, *77, *78, *104, *105, 

*111, *112, m3, 30, 43, 114, 116, 57, *60, *61, *62, 
*69, *70, 117, 77, 79, g, *118, *119, h, *120, *121, *122, *123, 
*124, ^125, *123, *128, *129, *130, *131, *132, *133, 

*136, *137, *138, *139, *140, ^141, *142, *-143, *144, *146, 
*147, i, 91, 148, 150, 29, *153, *154, n55, j, *153, *157, *158, 
*159, *160, *161, *162, *163, *165, *166, 164, 167, 37, *169, 

*170, *171, *172, *174, *175, *176, 178, 177, 179, k, 181, 

*82, *83, *84, 181, *183, *184, *185, *186, *187. 

Nearly every event related in Mark, and nearly 
every sajdng attributed to Jesus in that Gospel, are to 
be found in Matthew ; while most of the deeds and 
many of the discourses in Matthew are to be found 
in Mark, and generally in the same order. Two 
independent biographers writing a life so crowded 
with incidents as that of Jesus must have been 

Ik. "Widow's mite. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 19 

could never have so iniicli in common : and it might 
be supposed that either the author of Matthew cop- 
ied from Mark, or that of Mark from Matthew ; but 
an examination of the order of events in Mark, con- 
tained in the preceding table, shows us that this is 
not very probable. 

In Matt. xii. 22, we reacl that Jesus healed a 
man possessed of a devil (103) ; but the Pharisees 
said he did it by Beelzebub (104), to which Jesus 
replied (105, 106, 107, 108). ''Then" certain 
scribes and Pharisees desired to see a sign ; but 
Jesus declared that no sign should be given them 
but the sign of the prophet Jonas (109). Continu- 
ing his conversation, he compared that generation to 
a man out of whom unclean spirits had gone (110) ; 
and, " while he jet talked to the people, " his 
mother and his brethren stood without, desiring 
to speak with him (111). On "the same day" he 
went out of the house, sat in a ship by the seaside 
(112), and gave to the multitude the parables of the 
sower (113), the mustard-seed (114), the leaven 
(115), and others ; and we are told that when he 
" had finished these parables he departed thence to 
his own country," which we find was Nazareth. 

In Mark we find a very different account of these 
events. Jesus goes on to a mountain, and calls and 
ordains his twelve disciples (76, 77, 78), (Mark iii. 
13-19) ; and they all go together into a house, and 
such a multitude gathers about them that they can- 
not eat. Then the scribes wdiicli had come down 
from Jerusalem charge Jesus with casting out devils 
by Beelzebub (104) j and Jesus makes the reply 



20 WHAT WAS HE? 

(105) that is given in Matthew. This is given 
more appropriately in Matthew, after the healing of 
a man possessed of a devil (103). " There came 
then his brethren and his mother, and, standing 
without, sent nnto him, calling him " (111) ; the 
crowd in the house being so great that they could 
not reach him. Then, as in Matthew, he goes by 
the seaside (112), gives the parable of the sower 
(113) and the mustard-seed (114); and " on the 
same day, when even was come," Jesus stilled the 
tempest (60) as they passed over to the other side, 
— an event placed in Matthew at the commence- 
ment of the ministry of Jesus, immediately after 
the Sermon on the Mount, and long before the jour- 
ney to the seaside and the delivery of the parables. 
In both cases, after the tempest is stilled, they go to 
the other side of the lake ; and the cure of two de- 
moniacs in Matthew (61), one in Mark, ends in the 
destruction of a herd of swine. 

The differences between the Gospels may be rep- 
resented thus : — 

Matthew. — 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 
114, 115. 
Mark.— 76, 77, 78, 104, 105, 111, 112, 113, 114, 60. 

Had the writers of the two Gospels copied from 
each other, such a discrepancj" as this could not have 
existed; or had both been eye-witnesses of what 
they relate, or written down the statements of those 
who had been eye-Avitnesses, this irreconcilable dif- 
ference of statement could hardly have been made. 
Such events as the stilling of the tempest, the curing 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS, 



21 



of the demoniac or demoniacs, and the destruction 
of the swine, would have fastened themselves on the 
minds of those who were present, and they would 
have remembered more accurately the events asso- 
ciated with them than the conflicting accounts in 
the Gospels represent. 

The order of events and discourses contained in 
Luke sheds still more light on the composition of the 
Gospels. 

OEDER OF EVENTS AND DISCOURSES IN THE GOSPEL 

OF LUKE. 

We find Luke stating in the introduction to his 
Gospel (Luke i. 3) that he had ''perfect under- 
standing of all things from the very first," and that 
he wrote " in order," or, as the original signifies, all 
in consecutive order. How that order compares with 
that of the first two Gospels, the two following lists 
will show : — 



No. Chap. 

2. i. 

3. ii. 

4. ii. 

5. iii. 

6. iii. 

10. iii. 

11. iii. 
20. iii. 

12. iii. 

13. iii. 
1. iii. 

14. iv. 

15. iv. 
17. iv. 
la iv. 



Verse. 

38. 

7. 

39. 

2,3. 

4,5. 

7-10. 

16, 17. 

20. 

21. 

22. 

23-38. 

1-12. 

3,4. 

5-8. 

9-11. 



No. Chap. 
18. iv. 
21. iv. 
25. iv. 
117. iv. 
a. iv. 



b. 
c. 



IV. 

iv. 



d. iv. 

55. iv. 

56. iv. 

e. iv. 

f. iv. 
25. iv. 
24. V. 
52. V. 



Verse.* 
13. 
14. 
15. 

16-30. 
31. 
32. 

33-37. 
38. 

38, 39. 
40, 4L 
42. 
43. 
44. 
2-11. 
12-15. 



No. Chap. 

63. 

64. 

65. 

66. 

67. 

68. 

99. vi. 

100. vi. 

101. vi. 

102. vi. 
76. vi. 
78. vi. 

26. vi. 

27. vi. 

28. vi. 



Verse. 
18-26. 
27, 28. 
29. 

30-32. 
33, 34. 
36-39. 
1-5. 
6-10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 

14-16, 
17. 

20-49. 
20-23. 



22 



WHAT WAS HE? 



No. Chap. Verse. Ko. Cliap. Verse. 

35. vi. 27-36. 142. ix. 28-36. 

46. vi. 31. 144. ii. 37-42. 

42. vi. 37. 146. ix. 44. 

43. vi. 38. 147. ix. 47. 
127. vi. 39. i. ix. 49, 50. 

44. vi. 41, 42. 58. ix. 57, 58. 

48. vi. 43, 44. 59. ix. 59, 60. 

49. vi. 46. 75. x. 2. 
51. vi. 47-49. 81. x. 3. 
53. vii. 1-10. 80. x. 4-12. 

92. vii. 19-23. 96. x. 13-15. 

93. vii. 24-28. 90. x. 16. 

5. vii. 27. 97. x. 21, 22. 

95. vii. 31-35. 156. x. 25-37. 

185. vii. 36-50. 36. xi. 2-4. 

112. viii. 4. 45. xi. 9-13. 

113. viii. 5-15. 71. xi. 14. 
30. viii. 16, 17. 72. xi. 15. 

111. viii. 19-21. 104. xi. 16-22. 

57. viii. 22. 110. xi. 24-26. 

60. viii. 23-25. 109. xi. 29-32. 

61. viii. 26-36. 30. xi. 33. 

62. viii. 40. 39. xi. 34-36. 

69. viii. 41-56. 179. xi. 39-54. 

70. viii. 43-48. 136. xii. 1. 
77. ix. 1. 85. xii. 4-7. 
79. ix. 3-5. 86. xii. 8, 9. 

g. ix. 6. 105. xii. 10. 

118. ix. 7. 83. xii. 11, 12. 

119. ix. 9. 41. xii. 22-30. 
h. ix. 10. 38. xii. 33, 34. 

120. ix. 10. 87. xii. 49-53. 

121. ix. 12-17. 134. xii. 54-56. 

137. ix. 18-21. 32. xii. 58, 59. 

138. ix. 22. 114. xiii. 18, 19. 

140. ix. 23. ' 115. xiii. 21. 

141. ix. 27. 47. xiii. 24. 



No. Chap. Verse. 

49. xiii. 25. 

50. xiii. 27. 
54. xiii. 28, 29. 

180. xiii. 34, 35. 

173. xiv. 16-24. 
88. xiv. 27. 
29. xiv^ 34, 35. 

151. XV. 3-7. 
40. xvi. 13. 
94. xvi. 16. 
31. xvi. 17. 
34. xvi. 18. 

149. xvii. 1. 
148. xvii. 2. 

152. xvii. 3, 4. 
145. xvii. 6. 

181. xvii. 26-37. 

155. xviii. 15, 16. 
j. xviii. 17. 

156. xviii. 18-24. 

157. xviii. 25-27. 

158. xviii. 29, 30. 

159. xviii. 31-34. 

162. xviii. 35-43. 

182. xix. 12-27. 

163. xix. 28-40. 

164. xix. 45, 46. 

169. XX. 1-8. 

170. XX. 9-16. 

171. XX. 17, 18. 

172. XX. 19. 

174. XX. 22-26. 

175. XX. 27-38. 

178. XX. 40. 
177. XX. 42-44. 

179. XX. 45-47. 
k. xxi. 1-4. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 23 

No. Chap. Verse. No. Chap. Verse. No. Chap. Verse. 

181. xxi. 5-11. 181. xxi. 18-38. 187. xxii. 7-23. 

82. xxi. 12. 183. xxii. 1. 161. xxii. 24-27. 

83. xxi. 14, 15. 184. xxii. 2. 158. xxii. 28-30. 

84. xxi. 16, 17. 186. xxii. 3-5. 

The difference in the order of time between the 
events and discourses recorded in Matthew and those 
in Luke are indicated by the numbers attached. How 
great that difference is, such numbers as 97, 156, 36, 
45, 71, 72, 104, 110, 109, 30, 39, 179, 136, 85, 86, 105, 
83, 41, in consecutive order in Luke, sufficiently show. 
Yet we find the context in many of these cases indi- 
cating that they follow each other in the order of 
time, while in Matthew the entirely different order 
is in most cases represented as consecutive. The 
differences and agreements between Mark and Luke 
will be best shown by placing the passages in alter- 
nate lines. The numbers with asterisks show where 
the same events are related in the same order in 
Mark and Luke. 



Mark. 


Luke. 


Mark. 


Luke. 




2 


21 


17 




3 


23 


16 




4 


24 


18 


*5 


*5 




21 


*6 


*6 




25 


8 


10 




117 


7 


11 


*a 


*a 


11 


20 


*b 


*b 


*12 


*12 


*c 


*c 


*13 


*13 


*d 


*d 


14 


1 


*55 


*55 


19 


14 


*56 


*56 


20 


15 


*e 


*e 



24 WHAT WAS HE? 



Mark. 


liUke. 


Mark. 


Luke. 


*f 


*f 


*113 


•113 


•25 


*25 


*30 


*30 




24 


43 


111 


*52 


*52 


114 




*63 


*63 


116 




*64 


*64 


*57 


•57 


*65 


*65 


•60 


•60 


»66 


*66 


*61 


•61 


*67 


*67 


•62 


•62 


*68 


*68 


•69 


•69 


*99 


*99 


•70 


•70 


*100 


.*100 


117 


() 


♦101 


*101 


•77 


*77 


*102 


*102 


•79 


•79 


26 




*g 


*g 


*76 


*76 


•118 


•118 


77 


() 


•119 


•119 


*78 


*78 


*h 


*h 


104 


26 


•120 


•120 


105 


27 


•121 


•121 


HI 


28 


122 






35 


123 






46 


124 






42 


125 






43 


126 






127 


128 






44 


129 






48 


130 






49 


131 






51 


132 






53 


133 






92 


136 






93 


•187 


- ^137 




5 


•138 


•138 




95 


139 


( ) 




185 


•140 


•140 


*112 


•112 


•141 


•141 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 25 



Mark. 


Luke. 


Mark. 


Luke, 


♦142 


*142 




47 


143 


( ). 




49 


*144 


144 




50 


*146 


*146 




54 


»147 


*147 




180 


*i 


*i 




173 


91 


58 




88 


148 


59 




29 


150 


75 




151 


29 


81 




40 


153 


80 




94 


154 


96 




31 




90 




34 




97 




149 




156 




148 




86 




152 




45 




145 




71 




181 




72 


»155 


*155 




104 


*i 


*3 




110 


*156 


*156 




109 


*lo7 


*157 




30 


*158 


*158 




39 


*lo9 


*159 


- 


179 


160 






136 


161 






85 


*162 


*162 




86 




182 




105 


*163 


*163 




83 


165 






41 


166 






38 


*164 


*164 




87 


167 






134 


37 






32 


*169 


*169 




114 


*170 


*170 




115 


*171 


*171 



26 WHAT WAS HE? 



Mark. 


Luke. 


Mark. 


Luke, 


*172 


*172 


*83 


*83 


*174 


*174 


*84: 


*84: 


*175 


*175 


*181 


*181 


176 


( ) 


*183 


*183 


*178 


*178 


*184 


*184: 


*177 


*177 


185 


( ) 


*179 


*179 


*186 


*186 


*k 


*k 


*187 


*187 


*181 


*181 




161 


*82 


*82 




158 



Great as are the chronological discrepancies be- 
tween Matthew and Mark, those between Matthew 
and Luke are still greater. In Luke vi. 12 we are 
informed that Jesus went on to a mountain to pray, 
and continued all night in prayer: "when it was 
day," he chose his twelve disciples (76). The 
names are then given (78) somewhat differently 
from the lists in Matthew and Mark. Then Jesus 
comes down and delivers the Sermon on the Mount 
(27) ; " and, when he had ended all his sayings in the 
audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum," 
where he healed a centurion's servant (53) ; and the 
'' day after," instead of going over the Sea of Gali- 
lee to the country of the Gergesenes, as we find in 
Matthew, and curing the demoniacs and drowning 
the swine, Jesus went to a city called Nain, more 
than twenty miles from the Sea of Galilee, and on 
the opposite side, and raised from the dead a widow's 
son, — an event which is not related by any other evan- 
gelist, astonishing as it is. According to Matt. viii. 
14, Jesus at Capernaum cured Peter's wife's mother 
of a fever (55) ; '' when the even was come," cured 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 27 

several who were possessed of devils, and healed 
the sick (56). In consequence of the crowd that 
gathered as the result of this, he gave commandment 
to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (57). 
And a certain scribe came and said unto him, '' Mas- 
ter, I will follow thee w^hithersoever thou goest : " 
(58) ; to which Jesus replied, " The foxes have holes, 
and the birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of 
man hath not where to lay his head." ''And 
another of his disciples said unto him. Lord, suffer 
me first to bury my father (59) ; but Jesus said unto 
him. Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." 
Then he entered into the ship, and passed over to 
the other side. 

In Luke ix. 51, after 144, 146, and 147, we are 
informed, that, " when the time was come that he 
should be received up, he steadfastly set his face 
to go to Jerusalem." To do this, he had to pass 
through Samaria, and sent messengers to make 
ready for him in a Samaritan village : the people of 
the village, however, refused to receive him, and 
they were obliged to go to another village. Then 
follows (58): "And it came to pass, that, as they 
went in the way, a certain man said unto him. Lord, 
I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest ; " and 
Jesus answers as in Matthew, " The foxes have 
holes," &c. We might suppose this to be on 
another occasion, did we not find, as in Matthew, 
that he was immediately followed by one who said, 
" Suffer me first to go and bury my father " (59) ; to 
whom Jesus giyes the same reply as in Matthew, 
" Let the dead bury their dead." It is not possible 



28 WHAT WAS HE? 

that this could have happened in Galilee, near the 
shore of Gennesaret, at the beginning of the mis- 
sion of Jesus, and also at his last journey from Gali- 
lee to Jerusalem, and in a Samaritan village. 

It is evident, from an examination and comparison 
of the foregoing lists, that two of these Gospels at 
least are not wholly original with their authors. The 
differences that exist between them do not indicate 
this as plainly as the agreements. It is impossible, 
if their authors had written without copying from 
pre-existing documents or from each other's Gospels, 
that they could have written down events whose 
order should thus correspond even in its irregularity. 
Had the events occurred in the order in which they 
are related in Matthew, it would not have been sur- 
prising to find them in a nearly similar order in the 
other Gospels : but, as the case now stands, not more 
than one can have given the events in their true 
order, since no two give them in the same order; 
and the agreement that at present exists between 
them, so strikingly manifested in a comparison of 
the latter part of Matthew and Mark, and through a 
large part of Mark and Luke, could only arise from 
at least two of them copying from some common 
documents, or from each other. Something induced 
the author of Mark to place 122, 123, 124, 125, and 
126, and 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, in consecutive 
order, and the author of Matthew to place them in the 
same order. Something caused Luke to place a, b, 
c, d, 55, 56, e, f, 25, (24,) 52, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 
99, 100, 101, 102, in consecutive order, and the au- 
thor of Mark to place the same passages^ except 24, in 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 29 

the same order ; in like manner, 171, 172, 174, 175, 
( ,) 178, 177, 179, k, 181, 82, 83, 84, 181, 183, 184, 
( ,) 186, and 187, all but the two blanks being iden- 
tical in both Gospels. What was it ? 

It is not probable that any of the evangelists, pre- 
vious to writing his own, ever saw any of the other 
Gospels. The author of the first Gospel was so 
anxious to use every thing relating to Jesus which 
he could collect, that he inserted the cure of two 
blind men between 70 and 71. and 162, which, if not 
originally the same account, yet so closely resemble 
each other, that he would scarcely have inserted 
both had he possessed other material as good. The 
same 'may be said of 71 and 103, the cure of a 
dumb man possessed of a devil ; and of 121 and 
131, the feeding of a multitude upon a few loaves 
and fishes : each pair evidently the same account, but 
so transformed that the compilers did not recognize 
them. Luke, who seems to have had more material, 
and was more critical, in all these cases gives only 
one of each. But if the author of Matthew, who 
was thus ready to use material, had possessed 
Mark's Gospel previous to writing his own, he 
would certainly have inserted c, the healing of a 
man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue of Ca- 
pernaum ; he could hardly have neglected the case 
of the blind man of Bethsaida recorded in Mark viii. 
22-26, and k, the widow that cast into the treasury 
two mites ; and the order of the events in the two 
would have coincided much more closely than they 
do now in the early portions of the Gospels. We 
should not in that case find events in Mark in con- 



30 WHAT WAS HE? 

secutive order, as we now do, which are found in 
Matthew in the order 113, 30, 43, 114, 116, 67, 60. 

The author of Mark seems to have been desirous 
to insert in his Gospel every wonderful deed attrib- 
uted to Jesus ; and nearly every miracle recorded in 
the first Gospel is to be found in the second. Yet 
such a notable case as 53, the cure of the centurion's 
servant, is not there : we can hardly suppose that it 
would have been left out, had it been seen by the 
author before the Gospel was written. Had the 
miracles been copied from Matthew into Mark, we 
should not find the phraseology in the narratives 
so different. Yet it is evident that the authors of 
the first two Gospels had access to previously exist- 
ing manuscripts, in which events were placed in the 
same order in which they narrate them, or there 
could not be that similarity of arrangement between 
them that we find. The events from 120 to 147 are 
nearly alike in both Gospels. 

The authors of Matthew and Mark could not have 
had the third Gospel before them, or they would 
have surely inserted the miraculous draught of 
fishes, contained in the fifth chapter ; the raising of 
the widow's son in Nain, found in the seventh chap- 
ter ; the straightening of the crooked woman, in the 
thirteenth chapter; and the cleansing of the ten 
lepers, in the seventeenth chapter,— -all of which are 
found exclusively in this Gospel. 

Luke informs us (Luke i. 1) that many previous 
to him had taken in hand to set forth in order 
what was surely believed by the Christians of his 
time ; and it might be considered as very probable 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 31 

that Luke had at least the first and second Gospels, 
and that from them he drew a large portion of what 
his own contains in common with them : yet, if Luke 
had been conversant with the genealogy of Jesus 
contained in the first Gospel, it is unreasonable to 
suppose that he would have inserted a second, so 
widely and so irreconcilably different from it. Why 
should he have left out such interesting accounts as 
123 and 129, Jesus' walking on the sea, and curing 
the Syrophenician woman's daughter ? They could 
not but have been attractive to him, had he ever 
seen them. 

But, since these evangelists did not copy from each 
other's Gospels, we are compelled by their arrange- 
ment to believe that they did copy from pre-existing 
manuscripts, and manuscripts that, as we shall see, 
had been copied so frequently, and altered so much, 
that, although the order of the incidents remained the 
same, the incidents themselves had been so changed, 
that in some cases they are hardly recognizable. 

That these Gospels were composed from pre-exist- 
ing documents is also indicated by the fact that they 
have so much in common. Out of the multitude of 
sayings and deeds of Jesus, no three men could have 
independently chosen so large a number. In Mark 
we find a hundred and fifteen events and discourses, 
from the genealogy of Jesus to the last supper, 
which are related in Matthew ; and in Luke no less 
than a hundred and thirty-nine. 

In the Gospel of John we have a different life of 
a very different Jesus, and generally a different ar- 
rangement of such facts as are common to the other 



32 WHAT WAS HE? 

Gospels. The following is the order in which they 
are presented : — 



ORDER OF EVENTS AKD DISCOURSES IN THE GOSPEL 






OF JOHN. 




No. Chap 


. Verse. 


No. Chap. Verse. 


No. Chap. Verse. 


5. i. 


15. 


163. ii. 14-16. 


123. vi. 19-21. 


6. i. 


23. 


169. ii. 18. 


137. vi. 69. 


11. i. 


27. 


53. iv. 46-53. 


184. xi. 53. 


13. i. 


32. 


120. vi. 1. 


183. xi. 55. 


24. i. 


35-42. 


121. vi. 5-13. 


185. xii. 3-8. 


183. ii. 


13. 


122. vi. 15. 


187. xiii. 2-38. 



In John, we find up to the last supper but eighteen 
events and discourses which are related in Matthew ; 
and in all of them the phraseology is so different, 
and in others the attendant circumstances vary so 
much, that it appears evident the author must have 
received most of his information from sources inde- 
pendent of those from which the other evangelists 
drew. 

Jesus spends most of his time in Judaea according 
to John, in Galilee according to the other Gospels ; 
and John places events at the beginning of his mis- 
sion which the other evangelists place near its close, 
John informs us that Jesus was crucified on the day 
of the passover, which was the 14th of the month 
Nisan ; while the other evangelists teach that he ate 
the last or paschal supper on the day of the pass- 
over, and was crucified on the next day, which was 
the 15th of the month Nisan. 

It is generally supposed that the Gospel of John 
was written the last ; and yet it does not appear 
probable that even the- author of this had ever seen 
the first three Gospels, or any one of them, though 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 33 

he may have seen some of the documents that were 
copied in forming them. It seems to have been 
written at a time when the name of Jesus had 
become highly exalted, and a life of him was needed 
to correspond with the exalted conceptions of his 
believers. The Jesus of this Gospel is God, by 
whom all things were made; and from the first he is 
represented as acting and speaking in accordance 
with this exalted position. He is not tempted in 
the wilderness ; and there is no time in this Gospel 
for the forty-days' temptation recorded in the other 
Gospels. In this Gospel, he knows from the begin- 
ning who are unbelievers ; tells the twelve that one 
of thei^ff^Vdevil (J^hp^^^54, 70, 71), for he is 
aware^hat -Ju<ia3**-w4iM!)etraTOL him : whereas the 
other |i^|(|fs^eJ8repi*efseh"^*)fisii1^ knowing nothing 
QKnnf^f^'gj ^(^ fih^ plinrf 1 Y ^V^^r^rp. his death he 
promis^S^3fi)f4isciples-th^th^y shall sit upon twelve 
thrones, and judg^ the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus 
does not agonize in the garden : he lays down his life 
when he is ready, and takes it up again. What, 
then, could have induced such a writer as this to 
leave out of his Gospel 142, the transfiguration, in- 
serted by all the other evangelists ? One so ready to 
exalt Jesus would hardly have left out such a glori- 
ous subject as this, if he had ever seen it. It may 
be said, that, having been related by the other evan- 
gelists, it was unnecessary for him to refer to it. His 
Gospel does contain, however, the descent of the 
Spirit of God, in the shape of a dove, at the baptism ; 
an event of much less importance, and not nearly so 
glorifying to the subject, and one which is related by 



34 WHAT WAS HE? 

all the other evangelists. If John the disciple had 
written the Gospel, since he is represented as being 
present at the transfiguration, he would certainly 
have left us a full description. 

It appears from a comparison of Mark and Luke 
that both evangelists had access to documents in 
which events were placed in the same order, but in 
which there were differences resulting probably from 
translation, frequent transcription, and slight addi- 
tions, as they passed through the hands of various par- 
ties ; and, where Luke deviates from the order of his 
documents, — the author of the second Gospel seems 
to have almost implicitly followed his, — we can gen- 
erally discover a sufficient reason. By an examina- 
tion of the table on pp. 23-26, it will be seen that Mark 
and Luke correspond in the events and discourses a, 
b, c, d, 55, 56, e, f, 25 ; but Luke has then inserted 24, 
the call of Simon, Andrew, James, and John, quite 
out of the order in which it occurs in Mark. He 
did not insert it after 23, its position in Mark, because 
he had given previously a description of the recep- 
tion of Jesus at Nazareth, and that, in consequence 
of the attempt of the people to throw him over a 
precipice, he had gone to Capernaum, where he 
had preached on sabbath-days, and healed in the 
synagogue a man who had an unclean spirit (c). 
He could not have inserted 24 there without break- 
ing the continuity of the narrative ; but having 
received from some other source an account of a 
miraculous draught of fishes, which he uses, after 
this 24 comes very appropriately : the four fishermen, 
being convinced by the apparent miracle, are ready 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOdPELS. 35 

to follow Jesus, and engage in the superior occupa- 
tion of catching men. Then folloAv in order, in both 
Gospels, 52, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 99, 100,^ 101, 
102, (26,) 76, (77,) 78. In Luke, 26 is not found be- 
tween 102 and 76, but after 78, just before 27, its 
position in Matthew, which is more appropriate. 
Luke leaves out the reference to '' a small ship," 
which is found in Mark iii. 9, between 26 and 76, 
because he represents Jesus as standing ^' in the 
plain " (Luke yi. 17). 

We find 77 (power given to the disciples to cast 
out devils) is absent in Luke between 76 and 78, be- 
cause it accompanies the sending-out of the disciples 
(79), Luke ix. 1 ; Luke seeing no necessity for insert- 
ing it twice, as we find in Mark. 

In Mark ii. 13, between 63 and 64, we read, " And 
he went forth again by the seaside ; and all the 
multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them." 
This is not inserted in Luke, because he describes a 
multitude as being taught but a few verses before 
this (Luke v. 15), and another multitude just after 
(Luke vi. 17). But having the document before him 
containing the words, '' He went forth again by the 
seaside," he uses the same word, exeelthe^ which 
is translated '' he went forth " in the same place, 
but makes it refer to the call of Matthew (64) (Luke 
v. 27). 

Following 78, we find in Mark 104, 105, 111, with 

1 In 100, where we read in Mark, "And when he had looked 
round about on them with anger,'* we read in Luke vi. 10, ''And 
looking round about upon them all." The writer may have thought 
it impossible for the Messiah to become angry, or he was unwilling 
to have the fact known. 



36 WHAT WAS HE? 

no corresponding passages in Luke, because they 
are all inserted elsewhere, and two of them in more 
appropriate connections, — 104, conversation about 
Beelzebub and the casting-out of devils, in Luke xi. 
15-20, after the casting-out of a devil that was dumb 
(71). We find 105 in Luke xii. 10 ; and 111, Jesus' 
mother and brethren trying to get through the crowd 
to him, is placed after '' much people were gathered 
together," and they were listening to the parable of 
the sower, Luke viii. 19-21. 

After an interval of seventeen passages in Luke, — 
all but three of which are absent in Mark, and some 
of which were evidently taken from MSS. that Mark 
did not possess, — the correspondence between the 
Gospels continues, 112, 113, 30. 

After 30, in the fourth chapter of Mark, we read, 
'' If any man have ears to hear, let him hear," which 
is absent in Luke, because it is given more appro- 
priately just before at the close of the parable of the 
sower (Luke viii. 8). 

In Luke, 43, which follows 30 in Mark, is absent, 
because Luke gives it as a part of the Sermon on the 
Mount, as it is also given in Matthew. 

The next, 114, in Mark, is also absent in Luke. 
The reason probably is, that Luke found the parables 
114 and 115, the mustard-seed and the leaven, as 
they are in Matthew, 114, better told than it is in 
Mark ; and he therefore inserts them together, Luke 
xiii. 18-21. Then comes 111 in Luke in ^place of 
116 in Mark, because after the change made in 111, 
already referred to, this was the best place for it, the 
people being gathered out of '' every city," so that 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 37 

the mother and brethren of Jesus could not reach 
him ; wliile 116 was probably left out because it is 
not correct. 116 is a declaration that Jesus did not 
speak to the people without a parable ; to which, 
taking Luke's account, there are some exceptions, as 
Luke ix. 23 and xxi. 5. 

The correspondence between the Gospels contin- 
ues, 57, 60, 61, 62, 69, 70, (117,) 77, 79, g, 118, 119,^ 
h, 120, 121. In Luke, 117 is absent: it contains an 
account of the reception of Jesus at Nazareth ; but 
Luke had already inserted an extended account of 
the reception at Nazareth (Luke iv. 14-30), and he 
very naturally omits the inferior one. 

Then comes a remarkable hiatus in Luke from 122 
to 136 inclusive, the passages being contained both 
in Matthew and Mark. No good reason can be given 
why Luke should not have inserted them, if he had 
seen them : it is therefore probable that the MS. 
which Luke copied did not contain them, owing, 
perhaps, to a lost parchment. 

The corres]3ondence between Mark and Luke re- 
commences with 137, 138, (139,) 140, 141, 142, 
(143,) 144, 146, 147, i. What caused the omis- 
sion in Luke of 139 and 143 ? 

We find that 139 is the rebuke of Peter by Jesus, 
in which he says to him, '' Get thee behind me, 
Satan ; " and this, to Luke, probably sounded harsh, 
and unfit for Jesus to employ: or the passage may 
have been eliminated by some one who had that 

1 119, the death of John Baptist, is only slightly referred to by 
Luke. The ghastly story relating to the dancing princess is never 
referred to by Josephus. 



38 WHAT WAS HE? 

feeling, before Luke obtained the MS. Mark may 
have obtained 143 from the same source as Matthew, 
— a source perhaps unknown to Luke. 

Then follow, in Mark, 91, 148, 150, 29, 153, and 
164 ; and it would seem at first sight that these pas- 
sages could not have been in the document, which 
Luke used : but we find, that, although 91 is absent 
in Luke, 148 is found between 149 and 152 ; 150, 
which represents Jesus as saying that an offending 
hand or foot should be cut off, and offending eye 
plucked out, was probably left out on account of its 
extravagance ; 29 is in Luke xiv. 84, 35 ; 153, which 
states that Jesus went " into the coasts of Judaea by 
the farther side of Jordan," is left out, because Luke 
introduces immediately after, i, an account of Jesus 
and his disciples passing through Samaria, which is 
not found in any other Gospel. 

Then follow, in Luke, 49 passages found in Mat- 
thew, only six of which are contained in Mark, and 
a number that are not found in either Matthew or 
Mark. The correspondence again continues, 155, j, 
156, 157, 158, 159, (160, 161,) 162, (182,) 163, ( ) 
(165, 166,) 164, (167.) Of these, 160 and 161 are ab- 
sent in Luke. We find 160 and 161 to be the request 
of James and John that they might sit on the right 
and left hand of Jesus in his glory, and the dis- 
pleasure of the other disciples on account of their 
request ; an unseemly exhibition of ambition on the 
one hand, and jealousy on the other, which was 
probably left out on that account.^ Mark changes 

1 Luke gives, xxii. 24, the rebuke wMch Jesus administered to the 
disciples on that occasion. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 39 

the position of 164, the casting of the buyers and 
sellers out of the temple : Luke gives it as found in 
Matthew. 182 is not in Mark ; but the commence- 
ment of it may be seen, Mark xiii. 34. The cursing 
of the barren fig-tree, 166, is what any lover of Jesus 
might wish had never occurred ; and it was probably 
omitted by Luke in consequence. 165 is the journey 
to Bethany, which led to the cursing of the fig-tree : 
since the one is left out, the other is also. The 
substance of 167 is given in 145, which we find in 
Luke, but a little before this, Luke xvii. 6. 

After 167 in Mark, we find 37, which is not in 
Luke. It is a beautiful passage that Mark may 
have obtained from some other source. 

The correspondence again continues, 169, 170, 171, 
172, 174, 175, (176,) 178, 177, 179, k, 181, 82, 83, 
84, 181, 183, 184, (185,) 186, 187. We find 176 
absent in Luke, because it had been inserted in 
Luke X. 25, with the addition of the beautiful story 
of the Good Samaritan, but attributed to a law3^er 
instead of a scribe. ^ For a similar reason 185 is 
omitted, because it had been already placed in Luke 
xvii. 36, 60. 

After 187, we find in Luke 161, and part of 158, 
quite out of the order in which they occur in Mat- 
thew and Mark. As represented in Luke, the strife 
among the disciples as to who should be the great- 

1 In Mark we find, at the end of 176, the statement that no man 
after that durst ask Jesus any question ; and although Luke attrib- 
uted the question to a lawyer instead of a scribe, yet, having the 
document before him that attributed the question to a scribe, he 
inserts before 141, " Certain of the scribes answering, said, Master, 
thou hast well said; and after that they durst not ask him any 
question at all.'* 



40 WHAT WAS HE ? 

est occurred at the last supper, after he had given 
them to understand that it was the last time they 
should meet together before his betrayal into the 
hands of his enemies. This is unnatural. The fact 
appears to be, that, after Luke had advanced so far 
in his compilation, he found 161 and* the fragment 
of 158 on his hands. They could not be inserted 
after this; for there would be no opportunit}^ for 
Jesus to confer with his disciples : so he places them 
here as best he can ; but the other Gospels enable us 
to see how artificially, and our judgment shows us 
how inartistically, it was done. 

What is the most reasonable conclnsion regarding 
the authorship of the Gospels, in the light of the 
incontestable facts which the books themselves thus 
furnish? When the disciples came together at Jeru- 
salem after the death of their Master, and consulted 
how they should carry into effect his last command, 
" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
every creature," they must have felt the necessity 
of having some written document containing a 
record of those events in the life of Jesus which it 
would be of the greatest importance to preach. It 
is not presumable that any of these illiterate Gali- 
Iseans could write in any other language than that 
generally spoken in Palestine at the time, the Ara- 
maic, a corrupt Hebrew. The persons for whom they 
would write were their brethren, the Jews, who 
believed most firmly in their Sacred Scriptures, and 
had the expectation, then so prevalent among them, 
of the speedy advent of a Messiah who should be 
their deliverer. The document which they would 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 41 

draw up under such circumstances would be written 
in Aramaic, and contain what were evidences to 
them that Jesus was this Messiah, and such deeds 
and discourses as would be best adapted to convince 
the Jews that he was. There would be in it, of 
course, many references to prophecies contained in 
the Jewish Scriptures, which they had reason to 
believe had been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, the 
person, as they supposed, to whom the prophetic 
indices of more than a thousand years directly 
pointed. If Jesus was not the Messiah, he was a 
person of but little consequence to them and the 
Jews generally : if he was the Messiah, then was 
he the sent of God, the Redeemer ; he would shortly 
come to judge the world; to preach him would be 
their duty, and to believe on him of the utmost im- 
portance to all. This first document would contain 
a record of all the deeds that they considered mirac- 
ulous, which they had seen him perform, and of 
which they had descriptions from others, — how he 
cast out devils, healed the sick, made the lame to 
walk, the dumb to speak, and the lepers to be 
cleansed ; and along with these a description of his 
death and resurrection, and such portions of his 
discourses as had been embalmed in their memories. 
Matthew, having been a tax-gatherer, was better 
fitted and more likely to be chosen to write this 
document than the unlearned fishermen associated 
with him. 

This first document would probably be written a 
short time after the death of Jesus, and would be 
likely to contain much that was left out when the 



42 WHAT WAS HE? 

religion of Jesus became accepted by men like Paul, 
" when a great company of the priests were obe- 
dient to the faith," ^ and in the cities of Asia Minor 
even the philosophers bowed before the Nazarene. 
Its style, too rude for the critical hands into which 
it subsequently passed, and hj whom it was copied, 
would be modified so as to make it more conforma- 
ble to the taste of a more intellectual class than that 
in which it originated ; various additions would also 
be made to it at an early time ; yet the order of the 
events would be left in most cases as they existed 
in the original document, and the exact words attrib- 
uted to Jesus retained. 

As the disciples and their converts went out from 
Jerusalem to preach, they would need a copy of the 
original work to refresh their memories concerning 
the subject of their discourses ; and this would neces- 
sitate in a short time several Gospels, or parts of 
Gospels, as some might only wish for a portion, or 
only be able to pay for the transcription of a portion 
of the original, from w^iich the copies would differ, 
owing to the blunders of transcribers, and by the 
addition of material from the memory of new con- 
verts who had seen and heard Jesus, or heard from 
others of what he had said and done. 

As the circle of Christianity widened and extended 
into Asia Minor, where Greek was the prevailing 
language, some of the documents, previously writ- 
ten in Aramaic, would be translated into Greek for 
the use of the Greek teachers and their converts. 
To these Gentiles it would be a matter of compara- 

1 Acts V. 7. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 43 

tively little importance whether the prophecies of 
the Jewish Scriptures were fulfilled in Jesus or not ; 
and many of the references to them would be omit- 
ted in the new Gospels. In Matthew, which probably 
comes nearest to the original apostolic document, 
there are twenty-four direct references to the fulfil- 
ment of prophecies contained in the Jewish Scrip- 
tures ; while in Mark, which was evidently written 
for the Gentiles, we find only seven of these refer- 
ences to prophecies ; and in Luke, which is also a 
Gentile Gospel, there are the same number. 

In the translation of the various rude and prob- 
ably fragmentary Gospels from Aramaic into Greek, 
as the gospel came to be preached where Greek was 
the prevailing language, many changes would be 
made in them ; and, as Jesus became more highly 
exalted, what was offensive would be omitted or toned 
down, and the miraculous element increased, until 
in John we see the most advanced stage which the 
Gospels present, — the Lord of life and glory comes 
down from heaven, and walks among men, his celes- 
tial radiance shining through the earthly tenement 
in which he dwells. 

Papias, who wrote about the middle of the second 
century, is the first ecclesiastical writer who informs 
us that Matthew and Mark wrote an account of the 
life and doctrines of Jesus. We have but a few 
fragments of his writings, contained principally in 
the works of Eusebius and Irenaeus. His statement 
with regard to Matthew agrees very well with the 
theorj^ that I have advanced : '' Matthew composed 
the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and every one 



.44 WHAT WAS HE? 

interpreted tliem as he was able." If Matthew 
wrote the oracles or discourses in the Hebrew dia- 
lect, whether his work contained the deeds as well 
as the discourses of Jesus or not, it could not have 
been our present Gospel of Matthew, which we 
only know in a Greek form ; and how can we tell 
what liberties were taken in the translation ? 

That some of the MSS. used by Mark and Luke 
were in Greek, is indicated by the fact that several 
verses in each are identical in the Greek Gospels 
from which ours were translated. In Mark i. 22, (b,) 
and Luke iv. 32, we find, " Kai exepleessonto epi tee 
didake autoii^'' — ''And they were struck with awe 
at his doctrine." The 24th and 25th verses of the 
same chapter in Mark (c) correspond exactly with 
Luke iv. 34 and part of 35 : " Legon ea ti Tieemin 
kai soi^ leesou Nazareene ; eelthes apolesai heemas oida 
se tis ei ho hagios tou tlieou, Kai epetimeesen auto ho 
leesouSy legon phimotheeti kai exelthe exautou^'' — " Say- 
ing, What hast thou to do with us, Jesus of Naz- 
areth? comest thou to destroy us? I know thee 
who thou art, — the Holy One of God. And Jesus 
rebuked him, saying, Be silent, and come out of 
him." It may safely be regarded as impossible 
that any two independent writers should thus clothe 
their ideas, or express the words spoken in another 
language, in identical words. They must have 
copied ; and the documents they copied must have 
been in the Greek language. 

There are in the Greek of the Gospels words and 
phrases of great singularity, that are used in two or 
three of the Gospels in the same connection. In 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. 45 

Matt. iv. 5, (10,) we find ^^ pterugion tou liierou^'' 
which is translated in the authorized version '^ pin- 
nacle of the temple." In Luke iv. 9, we find the 
same singular phrase in the same connection (10). 
It probably means little wing of the temple ; though 
it is difficult to fix its exact meaning. In Matt. xi. 
10, Mark i. 2, and Luke ix. 17, we find ^'' IcatasTceU" 
asei teen hodon sou^'^ — '^ shall prepare thy way," — 
an unusual phrase, that would never have been 
independently chosen by three persons to express 
the idea ; differing, too, from the Septuagint, which 
the compilers probably had before them ; but some 
other document led them to use the words they em- 
ployed. In Matt. xiv. 19, Mark vi. 41, and Luke ix. 
16, in (121,) we find the language in Greek to be 
almost identical ; so that there can be no reasonable 
denial of the fact that some written forms in Greek 
lay before the compilers as they made up the Gos- 
pels. 

In Mark iv. 25 we read, " He that hath not, from 
him shall be taken even that which he hath." Some 
one copying this saw probably the impossibility of 
taking from a person what he had not ; and in Luke 
viii. 18 we read, " From him shall be taken that 
which he seemeth to have.^^ At first sight, we might 
suppose that Luke did this : but we find the passage 
in the very same form as it is in Mark in Luke xix. 
26 ; so that the change must have been made before 
it reached Luke's hands. 

By analyzing the Gospels carefully, we see at least 
the general honesty of the men who made the com- 
pilations. They did not insert stories of their own, 



46 WHAT WAS HE? 

or their order of events would have been very differ- 
ent ; and they seem to have carefully treasured up 
the fragments that appeared to them to be genuine, 
as if they were precious stones that must not be lost, 
though they sometimes gave them a very improper 
setting, and sometimes inserted them twice. 

In Luke viii. 16 we read, " No man, when he hath 
lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or put- 
teth it under a bed, but setteth it on a candlestick, 
that they which enter may see the light." This 
Luke took from some document that he had in com- 
mon with Mark ; but he meets with the same state- 
ment again in another document, and, having proba- 
bly forgotten that he had written it before, inserts 
it again (xi. 33) : " No man, when he hath lighted 
a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under 
a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come 
in may see the light." 

In Matt. ix. 34 and xii. 24, both referring to the 
same occurrence, we read that the Pharisees said, 
''He casteth out devils through the prince of devils." 
In Mark iii. 22 we read that the scribes said this. 
Luke appears to have had both accounts before 
him : he cannot tell which is right ; he therefore 
gives neither, but writes, '' Some of them said. He 
casteth out devils." 

The author of the fourth Gospel appears to have 
taken the greatest liberty with the facts ; but per- 
haps, if we had possessed a fifth Gospel, it would 
have differed as widely from John as that does from 
the Synoptists. We have in reality but two Gospels. 

Matthew and John are supposed to contain the 



WHEN WAS JESUS CRUCIFIED? 47 

testimony of two eye-witnesses to the principal 
events related in them. We may soon learn that 
this is not the case ; and that, if the Gospel of Mat- 
thew was w^ritten by an eye-witness, the Gospel of 
John could not have been. Matthew and John, the 
two eye-witnesses, must certainly have remembered 
on what day Jesus was crucified : whatever else they 
might forget, this they certainly would remember, 
associated as it was with the most sacred rite of the 
Jews. And yet, strange to say, they put this event 
on entirely different days. 

In Matthew we are informed (Matt. xxvi. 17, 20) 
that the last supper was eaten on the iBrst day of the 
feast of unleavened bread, which we find in Mark 
(Mark xiv. 12) was ''when they killed the passover." 
In Luke we find a similar statement (Luke xxii. 7) : 
*' Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the 
passover must be killed." Each states that they 
'' made ready the passover," and that, when the even 
was come, Jesus sat down with the twelve. In Luke 
we find (Luke xxii. 15, 16) that Jesus calls the meal 
"this passover." 

The passover was eaten by the Jews on the even- 
ing of the fourteenth day of the month Msan, corre- 
sponding nearly with our April ; and, according to the 
first three evangelists, this was Thursday : Jesus was 
crucified on the next day, which was Friday ; lay in 
the tomb on Saturday, the sabbath day ; and arose 
again early on Sunday morning. 

But in John we are informed that the supper 
took place "- before the feast of the passover " (John 
xiii, 1) ; and in the course of the meal, when Judas 



48 WHAT \yAS HE? 

went out to betray him, Jesus said to him, *^ What 
thou doest, do quickly ; " and it is added that some 
of them understood him to mean that Judas was to 
buy those things that they had need of against the 
feast (John xiii. 27-29). If they were then cele- 
brating the feast, they could never have supposed 
that Judas had gone out to buy what was necessary 
for it. After the crucifixion, according to John, the 
Jews begged that the bodies of the crucified might 
be taken down, as it was the preparation for the 
passover, and the sabbath, which began at six in the 
evening, a high da}^ being both sabbath and first day 
of the feast of the passover (John xix. 31). Jesus 
was therefore the true paschal lamb according to 
John, crucified on the 14th of Nasan, the first day 
of the passover ; and the last supper took place the 
evening before, on the 13th. 

Can we believe it possible that John did not re- 
member the time of such an important event as this, 
occuring at a date so marked, whether we believe it 
to have been on the day of the paschal supper or the 
day before ? There is a reiteration of circumstances 
in John, for the purpose, apparently, of identifying the 
day, which shows clearly that the writer knew that 
an opinion differing from his own had been taught. 
But if he is right, then either Matthew did not write 
the Gospel that goes by his name, or he knowingly 
stated what was false ; or, what is more probable, 
the writer of the fourth Gospel, in order to make 
Jesus the paschal lamb slain for all mankind, and his 
death the true passover, places the death of Jesus at 
a time when it did not take place. 



WHO WERE THE DISCIPLES? 49 

We cannot even tell who the twelve disciples of 
Jesus were ; for the lists differ : it is probable that 
some who were chosen backslid, and other converts 
took their places. They are thus given by the Synop- 
tists and in the Acts : — 



Matt. x. 2-4. Mark 


iii. 


16- 


19. 


Luke vi. 13-16 


i. Acts i. 13. 


1. Simon Peter, 




1 




1 


1 


2. Andrew, 




3 




2 


3 


3. James the son of 












Zebedee, 




4 




3 


4 


4. John his brother. 




2 




4 


2 


5. Philip, 




5 




5 


5 


6. Bartholomew, 




,6 




6 


7 


7. Thomas, 




8 




8 


6 


8. Matthew the publi 


Lcar 


^,7 




7 


8 


9. James the son of 












Alpheus, 




9 




9 


9 


10. Lebbeus,^ 


Thaddens. 


11 


11 


11. Simon the Ca- 




11 




Judas the son 


Judas the son 


naanite, 








of James.2 


of James. 


12. Judas Iscariot, 




12 




12 





In order to reconcile these conflicting lists, it has 
been supposed that Lebbeus, Thaddeus, and Judas 
the son of James, were the same individual ; but no 
better reason can be given for the supposition than 
that those who offer this explanation are very desir- 
ous that it should be so. 

The Gospels then, instead of being the product of 
the individuals whose names they bear, were com- 
piled by their unknown authors, from documents pre- 

1 The words "whose surname was Thaddeus '* are not contained 
in the best MSS., and are omitted by the best authorities. 

2 '' The son " is the most common meaning attached to the origi- 
nal; and not " brother of," as in the authorized version. 



50 WHAT WAS HE? 

viously made up by other authors ; their materials 
having passed through many variations, the original 
accounts having varied, as the offspring of animals 
separated. from each other, and subjected to different 
conditions, vary, so that, when the original story and 
the much-varied one were comj)ared together, the 
compilers sometimes found the differences so great, 
that they supposed them to be entirely distinct ac- 
counts. Some of the stages of variation that the 
Gospel stories have passed through can be seen in 
many of their narratives. In Matt. viii. 14, 15, we 
find 55, the cure of Simon's wife's mother, thus pre- 
sented : — 

MATTHEW. 

1. Simon wife's mother sick of a fever. 

2. Jesus touched her hand. 

3. The fever left her. 

4. She arose, and ministered unto them. 

MARK I. 30, 31. 

1. Simon's wife's mother sick of a fever. 

2. Jesus took her by the hand (and lifted her up). 

3. (Immediately) the fever left her. 

4. She ( ) ministered unto them. 

LUKE lY. 38, 39. 

1. Simon's wife's mother taken with a (great) 
fever. 

2. Jesus stood over her, and (rebuked the fever). 

3. The fever left her. 

4. (Immediately) she arose, and ministered unto 
them. 



CUKE OF SENION's WIFE's MOTHER. 61 

The simple account in this instance is that of the 
first Gospel. There is good reason to believe that 
Simon's wife's mother lived in what is now a malari- 
ous district.^ She appears to have had a fever, which 
left her after Jesus took her hand: indeed, she felt 
so much better, that she arose and attended to her 
family and visitors. It is not uncommon in a case 
of " chills and fever " for a person to be very sick 
with a high fever, and in a short time to feel almost 
as well as ever ; though, in this case, the touch 
of Jesus may have materially benefited her. The 
account that Mark gives has undergone some modifi- 
cation, and is more wonderful. Jesus takes her by 
the hand and lifts her up, and immediately the fever 
leaves her. If Jesus was the Messiah, there could 
not have been a moment between the touch of the 
great physician and the cure of the patient : it must 
have been instantaneous. In Luke, the story has 
become still more modified : it is not a common fever, 
but a great fever. The Messiah could not need to 
touch her ; '' he stood over her, and rebuked the 
fever : " and so instantaneous and complete was the 
cure, that she immediately arose^ — there was no 
necessity to lift her up, — and ministered unto them. 

After Jesus had cured her, we are informed in 
Mark that the people '' brought unto him all that 
were diseased, and them that were possessed of dev- 
ils." ''And 'he healed many that were sick of 



1 Fever is very prevalent at this day at Ain Mudawarah (the 
round fountain), one of the supposed sites of Capernaum, where 
Simon's wife's mother lived. — S^nTH^s Bible Dictionary, art. Caper- 
naum. 



52 WHAT WAS HE? 

divers diseases, and cast out many devils." This is 
probably the original statement. It having been 
noised abroad that the Prophet of Nazareth had 
cured Peter's wife's mother, the people in the neigh- 
borhood brought in many sick people to be cured ; 
and several of them were benefited by the treatment 
received from Jesus. But if the}'- brought all, and 
Jesus only healed many^ it is evident there were 
some that he did not heal. The question would 
naturally arise in the minds of believers in Jesus 
who read the story, " Why did he not cure them 
all? was he not the Messiah? Certainly: then he 
must have cured them all, and there is evidently a 
mistake in this account." 

Thus the story advances to the next form, which 
we find in Matt. viii. 16 : '' When the evening was 
come, they brought unto him many that were pos- 
sessed with devils ; and he cast out the spirits (with 
his word), and healed all that were sick." Here the 
fair inference is, that everybody was cured : the 
word that could cast out devils out of one could 
out of all, and all the sick were healed. 

The account is still deficient, however : it does not 
state whether the sick had one or many forms of 
disease ; nor does it state the method employed in 
their cure. In the last form, which we find in Luke 
iv. 40, this is remedied, and the account is in other 
respects more definite : " All (they that had any 
sick) with divers diseases brought them unto him, 
and he (laid his hands on every one of them) and 
healed them. And devils also came out of many 
(crying out and saying, Thou art Christ, the Son 
of God)." 



THE ANOINTING OF JESUS. 63 

The account has evidently been modified to corre- 
spond with an exalted conception of Jesus. The 
Son of God walks through the land, and disease flees 
from his presence as night from the sun ; and even 
devils are compelled to acknowledge that he is the 
Christ. 

There are evidently exaggerations in many of the 
Gospel accounts, growing out of a tendency to mag- 
nify the actions of a man whose position in the 
estimation of his believers was being continually 
elevated, till he was accounted a god, and nothing 
was too wonderful for him to do, as there was noth- 
ing too wonderful for his followers to believe. Yet 
it is marvellous that so little should have been 
added : we have only to read any of the apocryphal 
Gospels to see how immeasurably superior to them 
the canonical Gospels generally are, and how truthful 
the men must have been, as a rule, through whose 
hands the documents passed from whicii our Gospels 
were compiled. So fallible is humanity, however, 
that, where it would seem in the nature of things 
that the parties telling and writing could have had 
but little temptation to state other than the truth, 
the differences are very great ; as may be seen in 
the accounts of the anointing of Jesus, which hap- 
pens to be told by all the evangelists. I abridge the 
accounts, but faithfully give their substance. 

MATTHEW XXVI. 6-13. 

1. Two days before the passover. 

2. Jesus in Bethany, in the house of Simon the 
leper. 



54 WHAT WAS HE? 

3. A woman having an alabaster box of very pre- 
cious ointment poured it on his head as he sat at 
meat. 

4. His disciples "- had indignation, saying, To what 
purpose is this waste ? for this ointment might have 
been sold for much, and given to the poor. 

5. " Jesus said. Why trouble je the woman ? The 
poor ye have always with you ; me not always. She 
hath poured this ointment on my body for my burial. 
Wherever this gospel shall be preached in the world, 
this deed will be told as a memorial of her." 

MARK XrV. 3-9. 

1. Two days before the passover. 

2. Jesus in Bethany, in the house of Simon the 
leper. 

3. A woman having an alabaster box of ointment 
(of spikenard) very precious (brake the box), and 
poured it on his head as he sat at meat. 

4. Some " had indignation (within themselves), 
and said. Why was this waste of the ointment 
made ? for it might have been sold for three hundred 
pence^ and have been given to the poor. (And they 
murmured against her.) 

5. "Jesus said, Why trouble ye her? Thapoor ye 
have always with you ; me not always. (She has done 
what she could.) She has anointed my body to the 
burying. Wherever this gospel shall be preached in 
the world, this deed will be told as a memorial of 
her." 

Here are slight variations, but substantial agree- 
ment. In Mark the story is more graphically told. 



THE ANOINTING OF JESUS. 55 

The ointment was '' of spikenard; " she '' brake the 
box ; " it might have been sold for '' three hundred 
pence." Possibly the copier of the same account 
that Matthew gives (for the accounts are too much 
alike for both to be original) was conversant with 
facts unknown to the original writer, or he embel- 
lished it a little. 

Luke has, however, obtained the story from a very 
different quarter, and after it had been sadly muti- 
lated in some respects, and received great additions 
in others. 

LUKE VII. 36-50. 

2. Jesus in the house of Simon a Pharisee. 

3. A woman (in the city, which was a sinner) 
brought an alabaster box of ointment, and (stood at 
his feet behind him, weeping; washed his feet with 
tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head ; 
kissed his feet, and anointed them) with the oint- 
ment as he sat at meat. 

4. '^ The Pharisee said (within himself. This man, 
if he were a prophet, would have known who and 
what manner of woman this is that toucheth him ; 
for she is a sinner)." 

5. Jesus replies with (a parable of a creditor and 
two debtors, rebukes the Pharisee), and says to the 
woman (" Thy sins are forgiven thee ; thy faith 
hath saved thee : go in peace)." 

JOHN xn. 3-8. 

1. Six days before the passover. 

2. Jesus apparently (in the house of Lazarus and 
his sisters) in Bethany. 



66 WHAT WAS HE? 

3. " Mary took (a pound) of ointment (of spike- 
nard), very costly, anointed (the feet of Jesus, and 
wiped them with her hair), as he was eating supper 
(and the house was filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment). 

4. " Judas Iscariot said, Why was not this oint- 
ment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the 
poor ? 

5. " Jesus said. Let her alone ; she hath kept this 
against the day of my burial : for the poor ye have 
always with you ; me not always." 

Orthodox commentators generally regard the oc- 
currence related in Luke as entirely distinct from 
that related in the other Gospels, The difference, 
however, between this and the other three accounts, 
is hardly greater than that between the story in 
John's Gospel and those in Matthew and Mark. 
The coincidences are too great for the accounts to 
relate to different incidents. According to Luke, — 

1. Jesus is in the house of Simon. With this 
agree Matthew and Mark. 

2. A woman brought an alabaster box of oint- 
ment. We find the same again in Matthew and 
Mark. 

3. She anointed Jesus with the ointment. All 
agree in this, and Luke and John that she anointed 
his feet. 

4. She anointed him as he sat at meat. All 
coincide in this. 

5. She wiped his feet with her hair. In this John 
agrees. 

6. There was murmuring. All accounts agree in 
this* 



THE centurion's SERVANT. 67 

7, Jesus rebukes the murmurer. So all agree. 

8. He speaks encouragingly to the woman. All 
the Gospels agree in this also. 

If we are to have two anointings to harmonize the 
evangelists, why not three, as Origen suggested ? 
and, carrjdng out the same principle, we might 
have four crucifixions and four resurrections of four 
different men, to harmonize the four different ac- 
counts of the evangelists regarding the crucifixion 
and resurrection of Jesus. 

There is a miracle related in three of the Gospels, 
which has been so transformed, that but few will be 
able to discern in the account contained in the fourth 
Gospel the features of the original. 

MATT. Vin. 5-13. 

1. Jesus in Capernaum. 

2. A centurion comes beseeching him to heal his 
servant lying at home sick of the palsy, grievously 
tormented. 

3. Jesus says, " I will come and heal him." 

4. The centurion says he is not worthy that Jesus 
should come under his roof, and requests him to 
speak the word only, and his servant shall be healed. 

5. Jesus says, "I have not found so great faith; 
no, not in Israel." " Go thy way; and as thou hast 
beheved, so be it done unto thee." 

6. His servant was healed in the same hour. 

LUKE Vn. 1-10. 

1. Jesus in Capernaum. 

2. A centurion (sends elders of the Jews) to Jesus, 



68 WHAT WAS HE? 

requesting him to heal his servant, who is sick, and 
ready to die. 

3. (Jesus went with them, and met friends of the 
centurion.) 

4. Who say for him that he is not worthy that 
Jesus should come under his roof ; but he asks him 
to say in a word, and his servant shall be healed. 

5. Jesus says, " I have not found so great faith ; no, 
not in Israel." 

6. They that were sent found the servant well. 

JOHN lY. 46-53. 

1. Jesus (in Cana of Galilee). 

2. A nobleman comes, beseeching him to heal his 
son^ who is sick at the point of death at Capernaum. 

3. Jesus said, '' Except ye see signs and wonders, 
ye will not believe." 

4. The nobleman said, " Sir, come down ere my 
child die." 

6. Jesus said, '' Go thy way : thy son liveth." 
6. The man believed Jesus : his servants met him 
as he returned home, and informed him that the dis- 
ease had left his son at the very hour that Jesus had 
said, '' Thy son liveth." 

The centurion of the first three evangelists has 
become a nobleman, and his servant has been trans- 
formed into his son : he lives, however, in the same 
place, — Capernaum ; but Jesus is at Cana, which 
makes the miracle more remarkable. The servant in 
Luke is ready to die : and the son in John is in the 
same condition ; for the nobleman says, '' Come ere my 
child die." In Matthew, Jesus says, '' Go thy way," 



AGE OF THE GOSPELS. 59 

and in John he uses the same expression ; the man 
believes in the power of Jesus to cure, in all the 
accounts ; and the time of the patient's recovery co- 
incides exactly with the time when Jesus made the 
announcement. 

THE AGE OF THE GOSPELS. 

But, if the first three Gospels were composed as an 
analysis of them indicates, it is not probable that 
they were written at as early a period as the Christian 
Church generally supposes, but after sufficient time 
had been given for the different documents and 
various accounts to come into existence that were 
made use of by the composers of the Gospels ; and 
this opinion, derived from internal evidence, is 
strengthened by an examination of early Christian 
literature. From this we learn that 

There is no evidence that the four accepted Gospels 
existed in their present form until more than a hun- 
dred years after the death of Jesus ; while there is 
evidence that other documents containing discourses 
of Jesus did exist, and quotations were made from 
them just as we now make quotations from the four 
accepted Gospels. 

We have an epistle attributed to Clement, and 
believed to have been written between sixty and a 
hundred j^ears after the death of Jesus. It was at 
one time publicly read in the early Christian churches. 
The Clement who wrote it is supposed by some to 
have been the friend and fellow-laborer of Paul, 
who is mentioned in Phil. iv. 3. The epistle is 
written in the name of the church of Rome to 



60 WHAT WAS HE? 

the church at Corinth. It would make about forty- 
pages of such a book as this ; and we should very 
naturally suppose that if our present Gospels were 
then in existence, and regarded as authority, they 
would be well known to the church at Rome, and 
that in this epistle there would be frequent reference 
to them. There is, however, in the Epistle of Clem- 
ent, no mention of any of the Gospels, though there 
is mention of Paul and many quotations from his 
epistles. There are, however, two quotations by 
Clement of words which he says were spoken by 
Jesus. " Thus he spoke : ' Be ye merciful, that ye 
may obtain mercj^ ; forgive, that it may be forgiven 
to you ; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as 
ye judge, so shall it be judged to you ; as ye are 
kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what 
measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured 
to you.' " ^ There are passages in our Gospels that 
are something like a portion of this ; but, instead of 
'' Be ye merciful that ye may obtain mercy," the 
passage in the Gospels that is most like it is Luke 
vi. 36, — " Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father 
also is merciful ; " and it is therefore evident that 
Clement did not quote from our Gospels. '' As ye 
do, so shall it be done unto you," and "-' As ye are 
kind, so shall kindness be shown unto you," are not 
contained in our Gospels ; and yet they are quoted by < 
Clement as the words of Jesus. Some record of the 
words of Jesus, different from any that we possess, 
appears to have been used by the Christians at Rome 
more than sixty years after the death of Jesus. 

1 First Epistle of Clement, cliap. vii. 



AGE OF THE GOSPELS. 61 

The second quotation given by Clement is, " Re- 
member the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how he 
said, ' Woe to that man ! it were better for him that 
he had never been born than that he should cast a 
stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it 
were better for him that a millstone should be hung 
about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths 
of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block 
before one of my little ones.'"^ There is something 
like this in the first three Gospels ; but, by compar- 
ing the passage with the passages in those Gospels, it 
^Yill be seen again that Clement is not quoting from 
any of our Gospels, but from some other and differ- 
ent document ; and these facts indicate that our Gos- 
pels w^ere unknown to the Christians at Rome at 
that time, or, if known, were not recognized as au- 
thority, while the sayings of Jesus were supposed to 
be contained in some other document or documents. 
If we place the date of this epistle at the close of 
the first century, which many regard as most prob- 
able, its silence regarding our Gospels, and its refer- 
ence to words of Jesus which are not contained in 
them, is still more significant. 

One of the most popular books in the Christian 
Church, during the second, third, and fourth centu- 
ries, was the Pastor of Hermas, supposed to have been 
w^ritten about the year 100. By many it was be- 
lieved to be divinely inspired, and Irenaeus quotes it 
as Scripture.^ It would make a volume of about 
a hundred and thirty pages of the size of this. In 

, 1 First Epistle of Clement, chap. xlvi. 

2 Irenseus against Heresies, 4, 20, 2. 



62 WHAT WAS HE? 

it there is no mention of the Gospels, and no quota- 
tion from them ; but this is not so remarkable, for 
there is no quotation in it from the Old Testament. 

The Epistle of Barnabas is generally supposed to 
have been written early in the second centur}^, and 
fraudulently attributed to Barnabas the companion 
of Paul. Origen calls it a catholic epistle, and 
quotes it as he does the canonical scriptures.^ It 
would make about thirty-five pages of a 12mo 
volume. There are in it many quotations from the 
Old Testament ; but the Gospels and the evangelists 
are nowhere mentioned. There is one passage in it 
which is found in the Gospel of Matthew, — '' Let us 
beware lest we be found as it is written, Many are 
called, but few are chosen ; " ^ but since this ma3^have 
existed in many of the early documents, such as are 
referred to by Luke as existing before his Gospel was 
written, it furnishes us with no evidence that the 
Gospel of Matthew, in which the passage occurs, was 
then in existence. There are in this epistle words 
attributed to Jesus that are not found in our Gospels. 
" Thus also says He, Those who wish to behold me, 
and lay hold of my kingdom, must through tribula- 
tion and suffering obtain me." ^ We have then, in 
the Epistle of Barnabas, not only no positive evidence 
that our Gospels were in existence in the early part 
of the second century, but we have evidence of the 
existence of some document, containing sayings of 
Jesus, which was entirely distinct from our Gospels. 

Even as late as the middle of the second century, 

1 Origen De Principiis, 3, 2, 4. 

2 Epistle of Barnabas, chap. iv. ^ Ibid., chap. vii. 



AGE OF THE GOSPELS. G3 

we do not find in the writings of Justin Martyr, 
which abound in quotations from Paul's epistles and 
the Old Testament, and which would make a volume 
as large as this of about four hundred pages, any 
mention of tlie Gospels by name, though Justin refers 
to John as the author of Revelation ; ^ yet we find him 
making many quotations from what he calls Memoirs 
of the Apostles, — quotations many of which differ so 
much from those of our Gospels, that they were evi- 
dently taken from some other document which was 
regarded by him as authority. According to him, 
Jesus was born in a cave : '' But when the child was 
born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a 
lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in 
a certain cave near the village ; and while they were 
there Mary brought forth the Christ, and placed him 
in a manger ; and here the Magi who came from 
Arabia found him." ^ He even quotes Isa. xxxi. 16 
as a prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus being born 
in a cave. Justin tells us, that, " when Jesus came to 
the Jordan, he was considered to be the son of Joseph 
the carpenter ; and he appeared without comeliness, 
as the Scriptures declared ; and he was deemed a 
carpenter, for he was in the habit of working as a 
carpenter when among men, making ploughs and 
yokes, by which he taught the symbols of righteous- 
ness and an active life." ^ He also informs us that 
when Jesus was baptized of John, '' when he had 
stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jor- 
dan ; and, when he came out of the water, the Holy 

1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. Ixxxi. 

2 Ibid., chap. Ixxviii. ^ ibid., chap. Ixxxviii. 



64 WHAT WAS HE? 

Ghost lighted on him like a dove, as the apostles of 
this very Christ of ours wrote. ^ He represents a 
voice coming from heaven at the same instant that 
the Holy Ghost lighted upon him, saying, '' Thou art 
my Son : this day have I begotten thee." But our 
Gospels do not teach that Jesus was born in a cave, 
that the Magi came from Arabia, that a fire was 
kindled in the Jordan when Jesus was baptized ; 
and three of them do teach that the voice that came 
from heaven said, '' This is my beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased," and not what Justin affirms; 
while the fourth is silent in reference to the matter. 
It appears evident that Justin was not acquainted 
with our Gospels in their present form, and that 
his Memoirs of the Apostles was a different docu- 
ment from any with which we are now acquainted. 
In fact, until about the middle of the second 
century, we have absolutely no evidence that our 
Gospels existed in their present form, or that they 
were attributed to the persons whose names they 
now bear. From the time that the first apostolic 
document relating to Jesus may have been written, 
to the composition of the Gospels, there was ample 
time for all those variations to arise which are found 
in them ; most of them by simple, natural processes, 
and generally without the intention of fraud on the 
part of those by whose instrumentality they were 
done. 

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 

The widely different accounts of the resurrection 
of Jesus, which are given in the Gospels, bear the 

1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. Ixxxviii. 



BESURRECTION OF JESUS. 65 

strongest testimony to the fact, that, however honest 
we may suppose the writers to have been, their 
accounts can only be received as the statements of 
men about a series of events of which they were not 
eye-witnesses, regarding which they were but poorly 
informed, and whose import they but little under- 
stood. 

According to all the evangelists, the body of Jesus 
after his crucifixion was laid in a sepulchre ; though 
Luke tells us that Joseph of Arimathea went in 
boldly^ and craved the body ; while in John we read 
that he went secretly for fear of the Jews, and that 
he and Nicodemus — an individual of whom the 
other evangelists never appear to have heard — 
buried the body. 

All agree that the resurrection took place on the 
first day of the week. 

Who went first to the sepulchre, and discovered 
that the body of Jesus was gone ? In Matthew it is 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark informs 
us that it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of 
James (the '' other Mary " of Matthew), and Salome ; 
Luke, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, 
Joanna, and other women. In John it is Mary Mag- 
dalene alone. They all state that Mary Magdalene 
went ; so that we may suppose them to refer to the 
same visit. 

At what time did they go ? According to Mat- 
thew, " as it began to dawn " (Matt, xxviii. 1) ; 
Mark, " very early in the morning, at the rising of 
the sun " (Mark xvi. 2) ; Luke, " very earlj^ in the 
morning " (Luke xxiv. 1) ; and John, '' early, when 



66 WHAT WAS HE? 

it was yet dark" (John xx. 1). It certainly could 
not have been at the rising of the sun, and when it 
was yet dark. 

For what purpose did they go to the sepulchre 
thus early in the morning? According to Matthew, 
'' to see the sepulchre ; " Mark says they went with 
sweet spices to anoint Jesus ; Luke agrees with 
Mark ; but John's Gospel assigns no reason for Mary 
Magdalene's visit. It could not have given the 
reason that Mark and Luke give ; for it tells us that 
Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, wound the 
body of Jesus in linen clothes, with a hundred-pound 
weight of myrrh and aloes, as the custom of the 
Jews was to bur}^ their dead, and that this was done 
when the body was laid in the tomb. Since the 
body was thus prepared by Joseph and Nicodemus, 
there was no need for the women to buy more spices 
and prepare it again. Nor could they have done this 
for want of knowledge of what had been clone : 
for, according to Matt, xxvii. 61, Mary Magdalene 
and the other Mary were sitting over against the 
sepulchre at the time the body of Jesus was depos- 
ited ; and, according to Luke xxiii. 55, the women 
were there after Joseph had wrapped it, and beheld 
*' how his body was laid." The first three evangel- 
ists, as they know nothing of Nicodemus, so they 
know nothing of the hundred- weight of myrrh and 
aloes. 

What probability is there that Mary Magdalene 
alone, or the other women in compan}^ with her, 
went to the sepulchre, when a Roman guard Avas 
watching it, and a stone had been rolled to the door 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 67 

and sealed, as Matthew states, rendering it impossi- 
ble for them to enter? What woman or women 
would have gone thus early in the morning into a 
garden, among a troop of foreign soldiers? They 
would at least have gone to some one in authority 
to obtain permission to enter the sepulchre, without 
which their visit would in all probability be fruitless. 

According to Matthew, the resurrection of Jesus 
must have taken place about the time of the visit of 
the women ; for the angel of the Lord was still 
sitting upon the stone, which he had rolled away 
from the entrance of the tomb ; and, as the women 
returned from the sepulchre, some of the guard 
'' came into the city " (Matt, xxviii. 11). The men 
would not of course remain when there was noth- 
ing to guard ; and Jesus must therefore have risen, 
according to these accouiits, ''just as it began to 
dawn " on Sunday morning, and just as the women 
approached the sepulchre. The angel that rolled 
away the stone, and sat upon it, caused the keepers 
to shake, and become as dead men : but he says to 
the women, " Fear not ye ; for I know that ye seek 
Jesus," &c. It would seem as if the writer wished 
to convey the idea that the women were witnesses 
of the alarm of the keepers at the appearance of the 
angel. 

What probability is there that the chief priests 
and Pharisees asked Pilate to guard the sepulchre ? 
The disciples never seem to have thought that Jesus 
would rise from the dead (John xx. 9) ; and, even 
after they were assured that he had indeed risen and 
been seen, thev did not believe it. As has been 



68 -WHAT WAS HE? 

justly observed by Strauss, '' The high priests must 
have remembered speeches of Jesus, of which his 
disciples at the time of his death can have known 
nothing whatever, (else how could they have been 
so despairing ?) they must have seen the rising-up 
of the faith in the resurrection of Jesus; which is 
absolutely inconceivable." ^ 

What necessity was there for an angel of the Lord 
to roll away the stone ? Could not the triumphant 
Christ, who had vanquished the grave and conquered 
death, burst the door of his sepulchre ? It would 
be more conceivable that a man should help the sun to 
rise, than that an angel should assist a rising God. 

Matthew's is the only Gospel that says any thing 
about the angel of the Lord rolling away the stone, 
as it is the only one which tells the improbable story 
of the Roman guard which watched the sepulchre. 

When the women arrived at the sepulchre, accord- 
ing to Matthew, chap, xxviii., the angel of the Lord, 
who was sitting upon the stone, said to them, " Fear 
not ye ; for I know ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 
He is not here ; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see 
the place where the Lord lay" (and, according to John 
XX. 5, they could see this without entering the sepul- 
chre). " And go quickly and tell his disciples that he 
is risen from the dead ; and, behold, he goeth before 
you into Galilee ; there shall ye see him : lo, I have 
told you." Then we are told that they " departed 
quickly with fear and great joy ;" so quickly, that it 
is said ^' they did run to bring his disciples word." 
As they went to tell his disciples, Jesus met tliem, 

1 Life of Jesus. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. G9 

and said, '' All hail!" and they held him by the feet, 
and worshipped him. Then Jesus said, '' Be not 
afraid : go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, 
and there they shall see me." '' Then," says jMatthew, 
" the eleven disciples went away into Galilee," to a 
mountain, where they saw Jesus, and worshipped 
him ; '' but some doubted." Jesus spoke to them, 
sent them to teach and baptize, and promised to be 
with them to '' the end of the world." 

The statements in Matthew, however unreason- 
able some of them appear, place the matter before 
us very clearly. As it begins to dawn on Sunda}^ 
morning, the two Marj^s come to see the sepulchre. 
As they approach the entrance, thej^ see an angel with 
a '' countenance like lightning," and " raiment white 
as snow;" the guard, terrified by his appearance, 
having just fled from the spot. This angel tells the 
two women not to fear ; that Jesus is not there, but 
is risen ; asks them to come and see where he had been 
lying ; and then requests them to go quickly and tell 
his disciples that he is risen, and that he goes before 
them into Galilee ; plainly teaching that Jesus had 
started, and that the disciples are to go to Galilee, 
where they shall see him. As they go, intent upon 
obeying the heavenly messenger, they meet Jesus 
himself, clasp his feet, and worship him. He tells 
them what the angel had previously told them ; and 
they carry the message of the angel and of Jesus to 
the disciples, who believe them, leave Jerusalem, and 
reach the mountain in Galilee where Jesus had ap- 
pointed them ; and there they behold him and wor- 
ship him, though some doubt whether he is the very 
man that was crucified. 



70 WHAT WAS HE? 

But how different is the story that the other evan- 
gelists tell ! According to Mark, chap, xvi., the two 
Marys, accompanied by Salome, came to the sepul- 
chre at the rising of the sun, where they found the 
stone rolled away, and entered in. "They saw a 
young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long 
white garment ; and they were affrighted." The 
young man tells them not to be afraid ; that Jesus is 
risen, and they are to tell his disciples and Peter that 
he goes before them into Galilee, and that they shall 
see him there. The women " went out quickly, and 
fled from the sepulchre ; for they trembled, and were 
amazed : neither said they any thing to any man ; for 
they were afraid." 

If the angel of the Lord, in Matthew, pointed out 
to the women " the place w^here the Lord lay," and 
gave them a message which they were to deliver 
quickl}^, and with which they ran to the disciples, 
then we may be sure they did not go in to the sepul- 
chre, and see a young man who gave them a similar 
message ; and if they ran with joy to carry the news 
of the resurrection to the disciples, as we also find 
in Matthew, they were not so much amazed and 
afraid that they said nothing to any one, as Mark 
relates. 

There is a resemblance between this story and 
that in Matthew ; but the differences are so great, 
that one or the other must.be rejected. 

According to Luke, chap, xxiv., the women — the 
two Marys, Joanna, and other women ; five, therefore, 
at least — went to the sepulchre, found the stone 
rolled away, went in, discovered that the body was 



RESUERECTION OF JESUS. 71 

gone ; and, as they stood ''much perplexed" in con- 
sequence, '' two men stood by them in shining gar- 
ments," who said, '' Why seek ye the living among 
the dead ? He is not here, but is risen : remember 
how he spake to you when he was yet in Galilee." 
'' They returned from the sepulchre, and told the 
eleven and the rest : but their words seemed to them 
as idle tales ; " which seems very probable. 

The two men in shining garments could not have 
said this to the women after they had seen the angel 
of the Lord, of whom the first evangelist tells us ; for 
they could not after that be seeking the living among 
the dead, the angel having satisfied them that Jesus 
was risen, and they having run with great joy to tell 
the story and carry the message which he gave them 
to the disciples. Nor could they have stood much 
perplexed on finding the body gone; for the angel 
showed them that it was gone before they ran to 
tell the mourning disciples the glad news. 

Nor could it have been after they saw Mark's 
young man in " a long white garment; " for he told 
the women to go and carry his message ; and we are 
told " they went out quickly, and fled from the sepul- 
chre." It is impossible that they should have come 
after that with spices, and sought for the living 
among the dead, as the young men in Luke charge 
them with doing. 

But the two men ''in shining garments" could 
not have spoken to the women before " the angel of 
the Lord ; " for he was sitting upon the stone at the 
entrance to the sepulchre, and spoke to them before 
they had an opportunity to go in, and showed them 



72 WHAT WAS HE? 

Avhere the body of Jesus had been lying (Matt, 
xxviii. 6). This, of course, he would never have 
done if they had already been into the sepulchre 
and learned all about it from the two men. 

Neither could the two men in shining garments 
have spoken to the women before Mark's young man 
in a long white garment ; for after the two men had 
said, " He is not here, but is risen," and conversed 
with them, and called to their remembrance the 
words of Jesus, how could that young man in the 
same sepulchre break out, "Be not affrighted: ye 
seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified : he is 
risen ; he is not here ; behold the place where they 
laid him''? — all of which the two men must have 
previously told them. 

But if the two men in shining garments, standing 
in the sepulchre, did not speak to the women before 
or after the angel of the Lord, nor before or after the 
young man in a long white garment, it is evident 
they did not speak at all. 

According to Luke xxiv. 23, the women told the 
disciples on their return from the sepulchre that 
they could not find the body of Jesus, but that they 
had " seen a vision of angels, which said that he was 
alive;" but how could they have carried such a mes- 
sage as this to the disciples, when, according to Matt, 
xxviii. 9, 10, on their return from the sepulchre, 
'' and as they went to tell his disciples," they had 
met Jesus, worshipped him, and he had told them to 
inform his disciples that they should go into Galilee, 
and there they should see him ? 

Neither the angels nor Jesus, according to Luke, 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 73 

send any message to the disciples, commanding them to 
go to Galilee ; but Jesus appears to them in Jerusalem 
on the evening of the very day that he rose from the 
dead. What possible reason could the angel of the 
Lord, the young man in a long white garment, and 
Jesus, have had for telling the disciples to go to Gali- 
lee to see him, when he was going to see them that 
very evening in Jerusalem ? And how could Jesus 
be first seen by the disciples in Galilee, as Matthew's 
statement so plainly indicates, and yet be seen by 
them within sixteen hours of the time of his resur- 
rection in Jerusalem, seventy miles from Galilee? 
If Matthew had seen Jesus in Jerusalem on the day 
of the resurrection (and he must have done so accord- 
ing to Luke ; for he says that Jesus appeared to the 
eleven), how could he declare that the disciples went 
to Galilee in order to see him in obedience to the 
command of the angel of the Lord and of Jesus, and 
that there they did see him, but were so little satis- 
fied, that some doubted, showing that this was his 
first appearance to them ? And if Jesus told them 
on his first appearance at Jerusalem, as Luke de- 
clares (Luke xxiv. 49), that they were to tarry there 
till they Avere endued with power from on high, how 
could he have told them on the morning of the same 
day to go to Galilee, when they could only go by 
violating his express command, and his appearance at 
Jerusalem was to render their journey unnecessary ? 

According to Luke, neither Mary Magdalene nor 
the other women saw Jesus as Matthew and John 
testify. They merely saw the two men who told 
them that Jesus was risen. If Mary Magdalene 



74 WHAT WAS HE? 

alone, or the other women with her, had seen the 
risen Jesus, and informed the disciples, two of them 
would not have told Jesus in the afternoon, as they 
were going to Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 22-24), that 
certain women of their company who went early to 
the sepulchre had seen " a vision of angels, which 
said he was alive," and that some of the disciples 
went there, and found the sepulchre as the women 
had said, but did not see him. It is evident from 
Luke's statement, that, up to the evening of the day 
of the resurrection, these disciples had not heard of 
the appearance of Jesus to any one, nor had they 
received any command from him to go to Galilee. 
On their return to Jerusalem that night, they found 
the rest of the disciples, saying, " The Lord is risen 
indeed, and hath appeared to Simon ; " but not a 
word is said about his appearance to Mary Magda- 
lene or the other Mary. 

John in this, as in so many other instances, tells 
an entirely different story (John, chap. xx.). Mary 
Magdalene comes to the sepulchre while it is yet 
dark, and finds that the stone is taken away. She 
then runs to Simon Peter and John, and says to 
them, '' They have taken away the Lord out of the 
sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid 
him." On hearing this, Peter and John run to the 
sepulchre, and find the linen clothes with which the 
body had been wrapped, but the body itself absent : 
then they return home. But Mary Magdalene, who 
had meanwhile returned to the sepulchre, stands at 
the door, weeping ; and, on looking in, she sees two 
angels, " one at the head and the other at the feet, 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 75 

* 

where the body of Jesus had Lxin." They ask her 
why she weeps: she answers, ''Because they have 
taken away my Lord, and I know not where they 
have laid him." She then turns back, and sees Jesus, 
but does not know him. He says, '' Woman, why 
weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" She, suppos- 
ing him to be the gardener, says, " Sir, if thou have 
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, 
and I will take him away." Jesus says to her, 
" Mary ; " and then she recognizes him. He tells 
her not to touch him, but to go to his disciples, and 
tell them that he ascends to his Father and their 
Father, his God and their God. She goes to the 
disciples, and tells them all these things, which 
Matthew seems so strangely to have forgotten, and 
of which Mark and Luke never seem to have heard. 

But if, as John's Gospel declares, Mary Magdalene 
came to the sepulchre '' when it was yet dark," and 
found it empty, then Jesus did not rise from the 
tomb '' as it began to dawn," as we have seen that 
Matthew teaches; nor was there a Roman guard 
watching the sepulchre at that time ; and, if she 
could find no one to tell her what had become of the 
body of Jesus, the angel of the Lord could not have 
been there, and could not have informed her, as Mat- 
thew again declares. 

If INIary Magdalene, on coming to the sepulchre 
the second time, wept because she supposed some one 
had carried the body of Jesus off, and she knew not 
where, then she and the other Mary did not see an 
angel of the Lord the first time she went there, as 
Matthew states, who informed them that Jesus was 



76 WHAT WAS HE? 

risen, and sent a message to his disciples, which they 
carried. Nor could they have met Jesus as they 
went, as Matthew again states ; for how could she 
stand weeping at the sepulchre, because she could 
not find the dead body of Jesus, when she had al- 
ready not only received the tidings of his resurrec- 
tion with great joy, but had seen, embraced, and wor- 
shipped her risen Master ? Nor could these visits of 
Mary Magdalene, recorded in John, have taken place 
before that of Matthew. Tlie first, '' when it was yet 
dark," could not, or she would have found the door 
of the sepulchre closed with the stone, and the Ro- 
man guard watching it, and perceived the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus himself if she had remained till it be- 
gan to dawn. The second visit could not have pre- 
ceded that recorded by Matthew; for, after having 
seen and conversed with the risen Jesus, she certain- 
ly would not have gone to the sepulchre with spices 
to embalm the body which she knew was no longer 
there. 

The visit recorded by Mark could not have been 
the same as John's first ; for, after that, Mary Magda- 
lene runs and tells Peter and John that she does not 
know where the body of Jesus is laid (John xx. 2) ; 
but the young man in Mark tells the women, one of 
whom is Mary Magdalene, that Jesus is risen, and 
goes before them to Galilee. It could not have 
been the same as John's second; for on that occasion 
she saw Jesus, and conversed with him, after remain- 
ing for some time outside of tlie sepulchre ; whereas, 
on the visit recorded by Mark, she went out of the 
sepulchre quickly, and fled from it with fear and 
trembling. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 77 

We cannot place Mark's visit before either of the 
visits recorded by John : not before the first, for 
Mark's was made " at the rising of the sun/' and 
John's was " when it was yet dark ; " and not before 
the second, because if the Marys had been informed 
by the young man, as in Mark, that Jesus was risen, 
one of them could not have wept because she sup- 
posed some one had carried off the body, and she 
knew not where it was laid. But we cannot place 
it after the visits recorded by John; because if Mary 
Magdalene had seen Jesus, as she did on her second 
visit, according to John, she could not after that have 
gone with sweet spices to anoint his body. 

Nor is there any place in John's account for Luke's 
visit of the women, and the appearance of the two 
men in shining garments. If Mary Magdalene had 
heard from these two men that Jesus was risen as he 
had prophesied, and that prophecy had been called to 
her mind, as Luke affirms, she could not afterward 
ask a person, whom she supposed to be the gardener, 
where he had laid his body ; and if, as John states, 
she conversed with Jesus, she could not afterward be 
in the sepulchre seeking for his dead body, and 
thus receive the reproof of the two men, " Why seek 
ye the living among the dead?" If we accept the 
statement of any one of the evangelists, we nullify 
the statement of every other. 

In Mark we have still another account of the resur- 
rection (Mark xvi. 9-20), which is not to be found 
in the two best MSS., the Vatican and the Sinaitic, 
and hj the best critics is not regarded as a part of 
the original text, having been written probably by 



78 WHAT WAS HE? 

some one who thought Mark's account was left in an 
unfinished state. According to that, Jesus was first 
seen by Mary Magdalene, who told the disciples, but 
they did not believe her statement ; then he was seen 
by two of them as they were walking in the country, 
who told the rest, but they did not even believe them ; 
and lastly by the eleven, evidently in Jerusalem, as 
they sat at meat, whom he upbraided for their unbe- 
lief, and hardness of heart, because they had not be- 
lieved those who had previously seen him. But even 
this account, short as it is, contradicts all others. It 
is contrary to Matthew's ; for in that Jesus is first 
seen by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, and 
then by the eleven in Galilee. It does not agree with 
Luke's; for in that Mary Magdalene does not see 
Jesus at all, but he is first seen by Simon (Luke xxiv. 
34), then by the two walking to Emmaus, and lastly 
by the eleven. It also disagrees with Luke, when it 
informs us that the disciples did not believe the two 
when they returned from Emmaus; and with both 
Matthew and Luke in teaching that Jesus upbraided 
them because they did not believe those who had 
seen him : for, according to Matthew, they not only 
believed, but went to Galilee to see him in the strength 
of their faith ; and, according to Luke, they not only 
accepted the statement of the two, but said to them 
in return, " The Lord is risen indeed, and hath ap- 
peared to Simon." 

Paul's account of the appearances of Jesus also 
contradicts all the rest (1 Cor. xv. 6-8). According 
to that, Jesus was first seen by Peter, then by the 
twelve, after that of above five hundred brethren at 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 79 

once, then by James, then by all the apostles, and 
lastly by Paul ; though Jesus had ascended, accord- 
ing to general testimony, long before. Paul, true to 
his belief in woman's inferiority, does not credit 
either Mary Magdalene or the other women with 
having seen the risen Lord at all. 



CHAPTER 11. 

JESUS AN ENTHUSIAST. 

We see, then, that though we may believe in the 
existence of a man known as Jesus, who was crucified 
under Pontius Pilate, a Roman procurator of Judsea, 
we can by no means admit that the Gospels are entire- 
ly trustworthy accounts of him. But, since we have 
scarcely any other sources of information regarding 
him, we are under the necessity of taking such por- 
tions of the evangelical narratives as appear to har- 
monize with each other, with human nature, and what 
we know of the possibilities of a man living at the 
time, and placed under the circumstances in which 
we have reason to believe that Jesus must have been 
placed. 

The men who wrote the Gospels believing Jesus 
to be the Messiah, and receiving their information of 
him from those who were also believers and had the 
highest opinion of him, we need not be surprised at 
the exalted character with which they have endowed 
him. But when we find words and actions attributed 
to him that shock the moral sense, or indicate that 
Jesus was, after all, but a man, and a man subject to 
infirmities as all men are, and even to some to which 
but few are liable, we may generally regard these 

80 



JESUS AN ENTHUSIAST. 81 

as having their origin in the actual life of the man, 
whose portrait, however flattering, could not be drawn 
without giving us some of the actual features of the 
original. We may question the extreme beauty of 
a portrait as represented by a friendly artist ; but we 
may be sure that any moles or wrinkles upon it were 
really present on the face of the original. We may 
therefore assume that the statements made in the 
Gospels, that represent Jesus in an unfavorable light, 
are generally true, while other statements may some- 
times be taken with many grains of allowance. Ex- 
amining the evangelical histories in this way, Jesus 
appears to belong to a class of persons with which 
history makes us quite familiar, and of which there 
are numerous living representatives ; and a considera- 
tion of them will, I think, shed much light upon the 
life of Jesus. 

From the earliest historical times there have been 
men who believed themselves specially appointed by 
God to be communicators of his will, and thus sav- 
iors of the people, — among the Jews more than 
other nations, because their religion was established 
by such an individual, and their sacred writings were 
written or dictated by such persons, which led the 
readers of them to look for the appearance of others. 
The successful ones — those who satisfied many per- 
sons of the justice of their claim — were called proph- 
ets, messiahs, and saviors ; the unsuccessful ones, en- 
thusiasts, fanatics, and impostors ; and of these the 
Jews have also had, as was to be expected, a large pro- 
portion. Josephus tells us of many before the time of 
Jesus, and since his time there have been not a few. 



82 WHAT WAS HE? 

Many of these individuals, by withdrawing the men- 
tal force from all other objects and concentrating 
it npon one, have passed into a condition very supe- 
rior to that of their normal state. A man who con- 
centrates all his physical power, and uses it for walk- 
ing, will pass over a hundred miles in twenty-four 
hours ; if in swimming, he will buffet the waves, and 
cross the British Channel. Mentally, human beings 
wUl, however, sometimes pass into an ecstatic state, 
in which theii* ordinary powers are increased a thou- 
sand-fold; and like Joan of Arc, Peter the Hermit, 
Loyola, Joseph Smith, and many others, it seems ut- 
terly impossible to account for their success by any 
knowledge of the persons that we are able to obtain. 

In the second century, Simon, or Bar Cochba (" the 
son of the star ") as he styled himself, became a ver- 
itable king of the Jews. He pretended that the 
prophecy was fulfilled in him, " There shall come a 
star out of Jacob " (Num. xxiv. 17). He fought 
with success against the Romans ; though Hadrian 
sent his best generals against him, and compelled 
them to evacuate Jerusalem, where he was pro- 
claimed king, but fell eventually in a bloody struggle 
with the all-conquerors. 

In the fifth century, one Moses appeared in the 
Isle of Candia, and professed to be the ancient Jew- 
ish lawgiver, descended from heaven to lead the 
Jews of that island through the sea to the Land of 
Promise. Many of the Jews jumped into the sea, 
expecting that it would open for them as they be- 
lieved the Red Sea had done for their brethren. 

In 714 a Jew called Serenus pretended to be the 



JESUS AN ENTHUSIAST. 83 

Messiah, and promised to lead the Spanish Jews to 
Palestine, where he would set up his kingdom. 
Many believed in him, left their business, and fol- 
lowed him about, but, in the end, discovered their 
mistake. 

Even as late as the eighteenth century, Sabati Zevi 
in Aleppo declared himself to be the Messiah, and 
had at one time eighty thousand followers. He had 
a forerunner of the name of Nathan, who professed 
to be Elias. He preached repentance to the Jews, 
and obedience to himself and doctrine. Many of 
the Jews gave themselves up wholly to prayers, alms, 
and devotions. So great was his popularity, that in 
his native city, Smyrna, he was received with full 
royal honors. On being imprisoned he renounced 
his faith, and embraced Mohammedanism ; but neither 
this nor his death hindered the spread of the religion 
which he had established, remnants of which exist to 
this day. It is said that even his enemies could not 
object to the morality which he taught, while they 
acknowledged his pre-eminent mental ability. 

Mohammed, though frequently spoken of as an 
impostor, seems to have been perfectly sincere in the 
belief that he was a divinely-appointed teacher of 
the people. Mohammedan authors say, that, when he 
was born, a splendid light shone over all Arabia. He 
was subject to epileptic fits, and had a strong propen- 
sity to solitary retirement and religious abstraction ; 
frequently spending a month at a time in a cave at 
Mount Hara, near Mecca. Dissatisfied with the old 
Pagan religion of Arabia, and unable to accept Juda- 
ism or Christianity, at forty years of age he com- 



84 WHAT WAS HE? 

menced to preach a new religion to his countrymen, 
beginning with his own family. This religion, he 
affirmed, was revealed to him by the angel Gabriel, 
who commanded him to spread it abroad by preach- 
ing. " Certain it is, that, after long and painful soli- 
tary broodings, a something — not clearly known to 
himself — at times moved him with such fearfully 
rapturous vehemence, that, during his revelations, he 
is said to have roared like a camel, and to have 
streamed with perspiration ; his eyes turned red, and 
the foam stood before his mouth." ^ He who is 
familiar with the experiences of modern mediums, 
of mesmeric subjects, or of entranced persons, will 
recognize in this description a condition similar to 
some of theirs, produced principally in his case by 
some peculiarity of mental constitution. It is not 
surprising that his countrymen regarded him at first 
as a man out of his senses, whose words and actions 
were too silly to be regarded ; but as his converts 
became numerous, and his influence increased, they 
denounced and fiercely opposed the man who " called 
their ancient gods idols, and their ancestors fools." He 
was earnest as a man struggling for life ; and this was 
the result of his confidence in what, to those who 
have not experienced it, so often seems as the wildest 
fancy. He proved his sincerity by reducing himself 
from affluence to poverty, and frequently risking 
his life, but at length established a religion that 
in a hundred years '^ reigned supreme over Arabia, 
Syria, Persia, Egypt, and the whole of the uorthern 
coast of Africa, even as far as Spain." In the " dark 

1 Chamlbers's Encyclopsedia, art. Mohammed. 



GEORGE FOX. 85 

ages," Mohammedans were the lights of the world, 
and the teachers of barbarous Europe ; and to-day a 
hundred and thirty millions cry, " There is one God, 
and Mohammed is his prophet." Had he been un- 
successful, as thousands of fanatics have been, he 
would have been regarded as a madman or impostor ; 
and, indeed, it is sometimes difficult to draw the line 
between fanaticism, that elevates some men to the 
highest position to which humanity has ever attained, 
and madness, that stamps others as the most unfortu- 
nate of the race. 

Among religious enthusiasts and fanatics there is 
a great family resemblance, part of which may be 
attributed to conscious or unconscious imitation, but 
most of it to similarity of condition. George Fox, 
a religious enthusiast who lived about two hundred 
years ago, who was the founder of the Society of 
Friends, or Quakers, wrote a journal which reveals a 
great similarity between his life and that of Jesus as 
given in the Gospels. 

George Fox was born in 1624. His father was a 
poor weaver, who bound him apprentice to a country 
shoemaker ; but, when about nineteen years of age, 
he conceived that he was honored with a special com- 
mission from Heaven. He tells us that the Lord said 
unto him, " ' Thou seest how young people go together 
into vanity, and old people into the earth ; and thou 
must forsake all, both young and old, and keep out 
of all, and be as a stranger unto all.' 

" Then at the command of God, on the ninth day of 
the seventh month, 1643, 1 left my relations, and brake 
off all familiarity or fellowship with young or old." ^ 
1 George Fox His Journal, p. 3. 



86 WHAT WAS HE? 

For five years he rambled about the country, 
living occasionally in the woods, and practised long 
and frequent fasts, on one occasion fasting for about 
ten days. His days were devoted to religious medi- 
tation, and his nights frequently passed in sleepless 
excitement. He says, " I was often under great 
temptations ; and I fasted much, and walked abroad 
in solitary places many days, and often took my 
Bible, and went and sate in hollow trees and lonesome 
places till night came on, and frequently in the night 
walked mournfully about by myself." ^ 

" Temptations grew more and more ; " and he says, 
"When Satan could not effect his design upon me 
that way, then he laid snares for me, and baits to 
draw me to commit some sin, whereby he might take 
advantage to bring me to despair." When all hope 
was gone, he heard a voice which said, " There is one, 
even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." 
Again he heard a voice saying, " Thou serpent ! 
thou dost seek to destroy the life, but canst not ; for 
the sword which keepeth the tree of life shall destroy 
thee." 2 These were probably echoes of his own 
soul; for they are in his style. 

When about the age of twenty-three, he com- 
menced to preach wherever he could find an oppor- 
tunity; "travelling on in the Lord's service," he tells 
us, "as the Lord led" him. Multitudes gathered 
to hear the bold advocate who spoke with authority 
and power, and became convinced of the truth of his 
doctrines : though the opposition aroused among the 
priests and professors was at times fearful ; they 

1 George Fox His Journal, p. 7. 2 ibid., p. 8. 



GEORGE FOX. 87 

attacking George Fox as the scribes and Pharisees 
did Jesus, and for the same reason. 

" His leading doctrines were the futility of learning 
for the work of the ministry; the presence of Christ 
in the heart as the 'inner light,' superseding all 
other lights ; and the necessity of trying men's 
opinions and religions by the Holy Spirit, and not by 
the Scriptures." 

Frequently, as he informs us, " the Lord spoke to 
him, and told him where he should go, and what he 
should do." 

" On a certain time," he says, " as I was walking 
in the fields, the Lord said unto me, ' Thy name is 
written in the Lamb's book of life ; ' and, as the 
Lord spake it, I believed, and saw it in the new 
birth." 1 

*' Moreover, when the Lord sent me forth into the 
world, he forbade me to put off my hat to any, high 
or low ; and I was required to ' thee ' and ' thou ' all 
men and women, without any respect to rich or poor, 
great or small. And, as I travelled up and down, I 
was not to bid people good-morrow or good-evening ; 
neither might I bow, or scrape with my leg, to any 
one." 2 

" Now, as I went towards Nottingham on a first day 
in the morning with friends to a meeting there, when 
I came on top of a hill in sight of the town I espied 
the great steeple-house ; and the Lord said unto me, 
' Thou must go cry against yonder great idol, and 
against the worshippers therein.' " ^ 

Many wonderful cures were ^vrought by him, 

1 George Fox His Journal, p. 22. 2 j^i^., p. 24. 3 ibid., p. 26. 



88 WHAT WAS HE? 

wliich the early Quakers did not scruple to call mira- 
cles. 

Of one case, George in his journal says, '' Coming 
to Mansfield- Woodhouse, there was a distracted 
woman under a doctor's hand, with her hair loose 
all about her ears ; and he was about to let her blood, 
she being first bound, and many people being about 
her, holding her by violence ; but he could get no 
blood from her. And I desired them to unbind her, 
and let her alone, for they could not touch the spirit 
in her by which she was tormented. So they did un- 
bind her : and I was moved to speak to her, and in 
the name of the Lord to bid her be quiet and still ; 
and she was so. And the Lord's power settled her 
mind, and she mended, and afterwards received the 
truth, and continued in it to her death; and the 
Lord's name was honored." ^ 

Put this into Gospel form, and it would read: 
" And, when George was entered into Mansfield- 
Woodhouse, behold a woman in a physician's care ; 
for she was possessed of a devil, with her hair all 
loose about her ears, and many people holding her 
by violence. After binding her, the physician sought 
to bleed her; but he could not. And George said 
■unto them, ' Unbind her, and let her alone ; ' for they 
could not touch the devil that tormented her: so 
they unbound her. Then said he, ' In the name of 
the Lord, be quiet and still ; ' and immediately the 
evil spirit left her, and she came to her right mind ; 
and the people glorified the name of the Lord." At 
the close of his statement respecting this cure, he 

^ George Fox His Journal, p. 28. 



GEORGE FOX. 89 

informs us that "many great and wonderful things 
were wrought by tlie lieavenly power in those daj^s ; 
for the Lord made bare his omnipotent arm, and 
manifested his power to the astonishment of many, 
by the healing virtue whereof many have been deliv- 
ered from great infirmities; and the devils were 
made subject through his name, of which particular 
instances might be given beyond what this unbeliev- 
ing age is able to receive or bear." We may pre- 
sume, therefore, tliat he does not record the most 
wonderful deeds that were performed by him. 

On another occasion, he came to a place called 
Twy-Cross, where he cured a man who had been 
given over by physicians. His own statement reads 
like a fragment of some lost Gospel: ''Now, there 
was in that town a great man that had long lain sick, 
and was given over by the physicians : and some 
friends in the town desired me to go to see him ; and I 
went up into his chamber, and spake the word of life 
to him, and was moved to pray by him ; and the 
Lord was entreated, and restored him to health." ^ 

Of another case of healing performed by him, he 
tells us in a very Gospel waj^ : " After some time I 
went to a meeting at Armside, where Richard Myer 
was. Now, he had been long lame of one of his arms ; 
and I was moved of the Lord to say unto him 
amongst all the people, ' Prophet Myer, stand up upon 
thy legs ' (for he was sitting down). And he stood 
up, and stretched out his arm that had been lame a 
long time, and said, ' Be it known unto you, all peo- 
ple, that this day I am healed.' But his parents 

1 George Fox His Journal, p. 30. 



90 WHAT WAS HE? 

could hardly believe it, but, after the meeting was 
done, had him aside, and took off his doublet ; and 
then they saw it was true." ^ 

As remarkable as many of the miracles related in 
the Gospels is the following: ''When we came to 
Baldock in Hertfordshire, I asked if there was noth- 
ing in that town, no profession ; and it was answered 
me, there were some Baptists, and a Baptist woman 
sick. John Rush of Bedfordshire went along with 
me to visit her ; and, when we came, there were many 
people in the house that were tender about her ; and 
they told me she was not a woman for this world, 
but, if I had any thing to comfort her concerning the 
world to come, I might speak to her. So I was 
moved of the Lord God to speak to her ; and the 
Lord raised her up again, to the astonishment of the 
town and country." ^ 

With a change less than the difference between 
Gospel accounts of the same miracle, it would read 
thus : " And he came to Baldock in Hertfordshire, 
and he asked if there were any righteous in that 
town ; and they told him of a woman that had been 
baptized, but she was nigh unto death. Then he 
took with him John Rush of Bedfordshire, and went 
to the house, where they found many people, and her 
friends weeping around her bed; and they would 
not that he should speak to her, save to comfort her 
concerning the world to come. But George spake 
to her in the name of the Lord ; and immediately her 
sickness left her, and she rose up, so that all the peo- 
ple were greatly astonished: and the fame of him 
went into all the country round about." 

1 George Fox His Journal, p. 103. 2 ihia., p. 170. 



PEOPHECIES OF GEOKGE FOX. 91 

As even the disciples of Jesus could work miracles, 
so was it with the disciples of George Fox. He says, 
'' Great miracles were wrought in many places by the 
power of the Lord through several." ^ 

Like Jesus, George Fox could also read the inter- 
nal condition of many with whom he came in con- 
tact. On one occasion, some friends wished him to 
take a man along with him : but, though he was a 
total stranger, George declared him to be an impos- 
tor ; which was proved by the discovery that he had 
been pretending to be a minister, and had stolen a 
priest's suit. 

As the life of Jesus in the Gospels manifests the 
ignorance of the time in which he lived, and the 
prejudices of the people of his country ; so the life of 
George Fox reveals to us the ignorance of his times, 
and the prejudices of the people among whom he 
dwelt, and which he also shared. He says, " As I 
was sitting in a house full of people, declaring the 
word of life unto them, I cast mine eye upon a 
woman, and I discerned an unclean spirit in her. 
And I was moved of the Lord to speak sharply to 
her, and told her she was a witch: whereupon the 
woman went out of the room. Now, I being a 
stranger there, and knowing nothing of the woman 
outwardly, the people wondered at it, and told me 
afterward that I had discovered a great thing; for 
all the country looked upon her to be a witch. The 
Lord had given me a spirit of discerning, by which I 
many times saw the states and conditions of people, 
and could try their spirits. For not long before, as 

3 George Fox His Journal, p. 167. 



92 WHAT WAS HE? 

I was going to a meeting, I saw some women in a 
field, and I discerned them to be witches ; and I was 
moved to go out of my way into the field to them, 
and declare unto them their conditions, telling them 
plainly they were in the spirit of witchcraft. At 
another time there came such an one into Swarth- 
more Hall, in the meeting-time ; and I was moved to 
speak sharply to her, and told her she was a witch ; 
and the people said afterwards, she was generally 
accounted so." And, if she had charged George 
with being a wizard, his enemies might have said he 
was generally accounted so ; for he acknowledges 
that the people said he bewitched the people who 
were influenced by his doctrine. 

Like most religious enthusiasts, he was also a 
prophet. His prophecies that did not come to pass 
are of course unrelated. When he was a prisoner in 
Lancaster Castle, there was great fear of the Turks 
overspreading Europe ; but George tells us, " As I 
was walking in my prison-chamber, I saw the Lord's 
power turn against him, and that he was turning 
back again. And I declared to some what the Lord 
had let me see, when there were such fears of his 
overrunning Christendom ; and within a month the 
news-books came down, wherein it was mentioned 
that they had given him a defeat." 

"- Another time, as I was walking in my chamber, 
with my eye to the Lord, I saw the angel of the 
Lord with a glittering drawn sword stretched south- 
ward, as though the court had been all on a fire. 
Not long after, tlie wars brake out with Holland, 
and the sickness brake forth, and afterwards the fire 



GEORGE FOX. 93 

of London : so the Lord's sword was drawn indeed." 
And, if those things had not occurred, other things 
that occurred would have appeared to him equally 
significant of the drawn sword, or the vision would 
not have been mentioned. 

Some of George Fox's deeds were very extrava- 
gant ; and in this respect, also, he was like all reli- 
gious enthusiasts. One winter's day, about a mile 
from Lichfield, the Lord commanded him to pull off 
his shoes; which he did, and left them with some 
poor shepherds, who ''trembled and were aston- 
ished." He then walked about a mile to the city, 
and went up and down the streets crying with a loud 
voice, '' Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield ! " '' And, 
it being market-day, I went into the market-place, and 
to and fro in the several parts of it, and made stands, 
crying as before, ' Woe to the bloody city of Lich- 
field ! ' And no one laid hands on me. But, as I 
went thus crying through the streets, there seemed 
to me to be a channel of blood running down the 
streets, and the market-place appeared like a pool 
of blood." George ''afterward came to understand 
that in the Emperor Diocletian's time a thousand 
Christians were martyred in Lichfield. So I was to 
go without my shoes through the channel of their 
blood, and into the pool of their blood in the market- 
place, that I might raise up the memorial of the 
blood of those martyrs, which had been shed above a 
thousand years before." ^ But who was to be bene- 
fited by it George does not inform us. 

Yet George Fox was in many respects a noble and 

1 Preface to George Fox His Journal. 



94 WHAT WAS HE? 

useful man. William Penn, who was well acquainted 
witli him, testifies that " he was of an innocent life ; 
no busybody nor self-seeker, neither touchy nor criti- 
cal; ... so meek, contented, modest, easy, steady, 
tender, it was a pleasure to be in his company. He 
exercised no authority but over evil, and that every- 
where, and in all, but with love, compassion, and 
long-suffering. A most merciful man, as ready to 
forgive as unapt to take or give an offence. Thou- 
sands can truly say he was of an excellent spirit and 
savor among them ; and, because thereof, the most 
excellent spirits loved him with an unfeigned and 
unfading love." He was evidently conscientious, and, 
though destitute of advanced literarj^ culture, had a 
keen intellect, and on most subjects a sound judg- 
ment. He was the means of blessing millions direct- 
ly and indirectly; and the Quakers, his followers, 
notwithstanding some ridiculous peculiarities, have 
been, as they are to-day, the most exemplary of all 
Christians. 

Another remarkable religious enthusiast was Ann 
Lee, the founder of the Society of Shakers, whose be- 
lievers regard her as a female Jesus Christ in his 
second appearing; the mother-spirit, whose coming 
was foretold in many passages of the Old and New 
Testament Scriptures which the Shakers quote. 

She was born in Manchester, England, in 1736. 
Her father was a blacksmith, who, we are told, 
was poor, but honest and industrious. During her 
childhood she was employed in a cotton-factory, and 
sub.'^equently was a nurse in an infirmary, " where 
she was distinguished for her neatness, faithfulness, 
prudence, and good economy." 



ANN LEE. 95 

When a child she was serious and thoughtful, 
" and was often favored with heavenly visions." 

The marriage state was very repugnant to her ; 
but, by the solicitation of her friends, she was in- 
duced to marry a blacksmith, by whom she had four 
children, who all died in infancy. 

When about twenty-three years of age, her mind 
became very much exercised on the subject of reli- 
gion. She says, " I cried to God without inter- 
mission, for three days and three nights, that he 
would give me true desires^ ^ Again she says, 
" Soon after I set out to travel in the way of God, 
I labored o' nights in the work of God. Sometimes I 
labored all night, continually crying to God for my 
own redemption. Sometimes I went to bed, and 
slept ; but in the morning, if I could not feel that 
sense of the work of God that I did before I slept, 
I would labor all night ... In my travail and tribu- 
lation my sufferings were so great, that my flesh con- 
sumed upon my bones, bloody sweat pressed through 
the pores of my skin, and I became as helpless as an 
infant." ^ She is said to have been '' wrought upon 
after this manner " for nine years ; yet at times she 
had intervals during which her bodily strength was 
renewed, and she received "heavenly visions and 
divine revelations." 

When thirty-four years of age "she saw Jesus 
Christ in open vision, who revealed to her the 
most astonishing views and divine manifestations of 
truth." We are told that she saw the cause of all 

^ Shakers and Shakerism, by F. W. Evans, p. 124. 
2 Ibid., p. 125. 



96 WHAT WAS HE? 

human depravity, and the " act of transgression 
committed by Adam and Eve," which, according 
to her statement, was sexual intercourse ; against 
which, and all lustful gratifications, *•' she bore from 
that time an open testimony." Henceforth " she 
was received by the people as a mother in spiritual 
things," and was called Mother Ann. 

Her believers credit her with marvellous powers ; 
and she received, according to them, many miracu- 
lous manifestations of divine favor. She '' often 
revealed the most secret sins that were purposely 
kept back by such as were opening their minds 
before her." 

*' At one time a mob attempted to bind her with 
ropes, but were unable to do so by reason of the 
spiritual power by which she was exercised." ^ 

She was accused of blasphemy at another time, 
and brought for examination before four ministers of 
the Church of England. The}^ asked her to speak 
in other tongues ; but she told them, that, unless she 
felt the power of God, she could not. This she soon 
felt, and spoke for four hours. And we are assured 
that the clergymen, who were great linguists, ''- tes- 
tified that she had spoken in seventy-two different 
tongues." The ability of these ministers to under- 
stand the seventy-two different tongues is hardly less 
remarkable than her ability to speak them. 

She gives the following account of God's interfer- 
ence in her behalf: "One of my brothers, being 
greatly enraged, said he was determined to overcome 
me : so he brought a staff about the size of a broom- 

1 Shakers and Shakerism, by F. W. Evans, p. 134. 



MIBACLES OF ANN LEE. 97 

handle, and came to me as I was sitting in a chair, 
singing by the power of God. lie beat me over the 
face and nose with the staff, till one end of it was 
much splintered. I sensibly felt and saAV the bright 
rays of the glory of God pass between my face and 
the staff, and I did but just feel the blows. He 
continued beating until he was so far spent that 
he called for drink. He then began again with the 
other end of the staff; and I felt mv breath like heal- 
ing balsam, which healed me so that I felt no harm 
from the strokes." ^ 

She had also great healing power ; and many, we 
are informed, by her instrumentality were healed by 
a word or touch. 

'' Sarah Kibbee of New Lebanon testifieth, that 
when a child she was very weakly ; that her weak- 
ness finally settled in her left foot ; that, beside 
other medical attendance, she was under the care of 
Dr. Millard during one whole summer, and found no 
relief; that her foot and leg withered, and seemed 
to perish ; that the cords of her ham were so con- 
tracted, that she was unable to straighten her leg, or 
set her foot to the floor." In this condition she went 
to reside with the Shakers at Watervliet, where 
Mother Ann and the elders were. In a few days 
she embraced their faith, and confessed her sins. 
Sitting in a chair the next day. Elder William Lee 
'' came into the room, took hold of her foot, and 
stroked it with his hands,.saying, ' According^ to thy 
faith, so be it unto thee.' Soon after. Mother came 
into the room, and bade her put away her wooden 

^ Shakers and Shakerism, p. 136. 



98 WHAT WAS HE? 

staves, and lean upon Christ." " She immediately 
received strength, laid away her crutches, and hath 
never used any since, but was restored to perfect 
soundness, so that her foot and leg, which before was 
at least one-quarter less than the other, was in every 
respect restored equal with the other. She went forth 
in the worship of God afterwards to work, and hath 
never felt the least symptom of her old infirmity from 
that day to this." ^ This was twenty-seven years 
after the cure. To the declaration of the girl her- 
self, which is attested by four witnesses, is added the 
testimony of a person in whose presence the ''miracu- 
lous cure was wrought." 

Then we have the testimony of a woman who was 
afflicted with a cancer, which was cured by " Mother 
Ann " placing her finger upon it ; when instantly the 
pain left her, and she was never afflicted with it 
afterward. 

When thirty-eight years of age, Ann Lee left Eng- 
land for America, accompanied by her husband and 
several believers in the Shaker doctrine. While on 
board the vessel, they sang and danced according to 
their custom ; which so offended the captain, that he 
threatened to throw them overboard. Soon after, a 
storm arose, the vessel sprang a leak, and the water 
gained upon them very fast. " The whole crew were 
greatly alarmed ; and the captain turned as pale as 
a corpse, and said all Avould perish before morning. 
But Ann Lee retained her confidence, and said, 
'Captain, be of good cheer: there shall not a hair 
of our heads perish : we shall arrive safe in America. 
1 Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing (1823), p. 44. 



DEATH OF ANX LEE. - 99 

I just saw two bright angels of God standing by the 
mast, through whom I received this promise.' " ^ This 
might have been written by the evangelist Luke 
concerning Jesus or Paul, and it would have har- 
monized well with the other marvellous accounts 
recorded of them. 

Ann Lee died at the age of forty-eight, but not 
before she had laid the foundation for the various 
Shaker communities that at present exist, among 
w^hom. she is regarded as a mother indeed. Some of 
her sayings have been recorded, and show her on 
many subjects to have possessed a sound and practi- 
cal judgment. • 

She inculcated economy, for which the Shakers 
are noted, thus : '' You must be prudent and saving 
of every good thing that God blesses you with, that 
you may have to give to the needy." 

Of children she said, '' Little children are innocent, 
and they should never be brought out of it. If 
brought up in simplicity, they would receive good as 
easily as evil. Do not blame them for every little 
fault. . . . Never speak to them in a passion : it will 
put devils into them. When I was a child, my mind 
was taken up with things of God, so that I saw 
heavenly visions instead of trifling toys. Do all your 
work as though you had a thousand years to live, 
and as though you were going to die to-morrow." ^ 

She promised blessings to those who obeyed what 
she called the gospel, — that is. Shaker doctrine : they 
were to be kings and priests unto God ; while those 

1 Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing, p. 140. 

2 Ibid., p. 148. 



100 WHAT WAS HE? 

that did not were to suffer the terrible penalties of 
their disobedience. There is no doubt that this 
woman was sincere, truthful, on many subjects well 
informed ; able to magnetize many persons who came 
within the sphere of her influence, and to cure the 
diseases of some who had confidence in her; and. 
could we but see her through the medium of twenty 
centuries of worship, and as her Shaker biographers 
represent her, she might appear to us as she does to 
the Shakers, — the mother-spirit and a savior. Yet 
she was unable to read or write, and, with all her talk 
about purity, was a tobacco slave, smoking a pipe to 
the day of her death. Tliis fact alone, we might sup- 
pose, would be sufficient to satisfy every clean person 
that she could never have been chosen for any special 
purpose by a God of purity. 

Richard Brothens of England announced himself, 
in 1793, as the apostle of a new religion, '' the 
nephew of the Almighty, and prince of the Hebrews, 
appointed to lead them to the land of Canaan." 
The next year he published a book entitled ''A 
Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times," 
in which he says, " It is from visions and revelations, 
and through the Holy Ghost, that I write this book 
for the benefit of all men: therefore, to say it is 
false, that I am mad, am an impostor, have a devil, 
or am out of my senses, constitutes the dangerous sin 
of blasphemy." 

Persons of liberal education and good ability main- 
tained the divinity of his mission. Among them 
were Natlianiel Brassy Halhed, member of Parlia- 
ment for Lymington, and William Sharp, an eminent 



JOAN^NA SOUTHCOTE. — JOSEPH SMITH. 101 

engraver. Halhed bore testimony to his prophesying 
correctly the death of the three emperors of Ger- 
many. Of his prophecies "- The Penny Cyclopaedia " 
says, " Many of them have been either totally or par- 
tially fulfilled." He was at length, by order of the 
government, confined in Bethlehem Hospital as a 
dangerous lunatic. He passed from the condition of 
an enthusiast to that of a fanatic, and to the stage 
beyond fanaticism, which is lunacy. 

Joanna Southcote was another religious fanatic, 
whose followers, many of whom were intelligent 
and respectable, at one time numbered one hun- 
dred thousand. She had frequent visions, and made 
many prophetic annunciations. Her prophecies com- 
manded universal attention, and some of them re- 
ceived a remarkable fulfilment. When she was sixty 
years of age, she announced that she was to become 
the mother of the Shiloh, the great Deliverer, in 1814; 
and, in anticipation of his advent, her followers pro- 
vided an expensive cradle. This was not fulfilled; 
and she died on the 27th of December in that year, 
having declared just previous to her death, that, if 
she was deceived, it was by some spirit good or evil. 
" The number of her followers continued to be very 
great for many years after her death : they believed 
that there would be a resurrection of her body, and 
that she was still to be the mother of the promised 
Shiloh." ^ When in London thirty-foui* years ago, 
I heard a preacher advocating her claims ; nor is the 
sect of Southcotians extinct to this day. 

Joseph Smith, the most remarkable religious en- 

1 English Cyclopaedia of Biography, art. Joanna Southcote. 



102 WHAT WAS HE? 

thusiast of recent times, was regarded in his youth 
as visionary and fanatical. He used to spend hours 
in prayer and meditation, and professed to receive 
angelic visits. Referring to the 21st of September, 
1823, he says, "It seemed as though the house was 
filled with consuming fire. In a moment a person- 
age stood before me, with a countenance like light- 
ning, and visible to the extremities of the body, w^ho 
proclaimed himself to be an angel of God." He 
told Smith that the covenant which God made with 
ancient Israel was at hand to be fulfilled; that the 
preparatory work for the second coming of the Mes- 
siah was speedily to commence ; that the time was 
at hand for the gospel to be preached in its power 
and fulness to all nations ; and that Smith was cho- 
sen to be an instrument in the hands of God to help 
bring in this glorious time. 

There are now said to be two hundred thousand 
Mormons, who regard Joseph Smith with nearly as 
much reverence as Christians do Jesus. As a com- 
munity they are not excelled for industry, temper- 
ance, and general prosperity, by any people in the 
world ; though their belief in the divine inspiration 
of Joseph Smith has led them into polygamy, and all 
the curses that flow from such a barbarous practice. 

The fourteenth article of their creed is, " We 
believe in being honest, true, chaste, temperate, 
benevolent, virtuous, and upright, and in doing good 
to all men ; also that an idle or lazy person cannot 
be a Christian, or have salvation." I know of no 
other Christian creed that contains as sensible an 
article as that. 



TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 103 

With such individuals as Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, 
Mohammed, George Fox, Swedenborg, Ann Lee, and 
others of similar character, though superior in some 
respects, as I think, to all of them, I class Jesus of 
Nazareth. The irregularities of his life, indicated by 
the accounts of the evangelists, could not but inter- 
fere with the normal manifestations of his mind, had 
it been otherwise regular ; while they manifest the 
enthusiasm that characterizes those persons who 
claim to have special revelations from God. 

Before Jesus commenced his public ministrations, 
we are informed by three of the evangelists that he 
fasted forty clays and forty nights. According to 
the description given, he appears to have been alone ; 
and we may consider that the account came from 
himself. It seems probable, that under the influ- 
ence of great religious excitement, intensified by the 
preaching and baptism of John, Jesus withdrew to 
the wilderness, and attempted to fast as Moses is 
said to have done, when for " forty days and forty 
nights he did neither eat bread nor drink water." 
His fasting, added to the previous excitement, prob- 
ably threw him into the condition of trance ; for 
this seems best to explain what follows. Bring this 
story of the temptation to the nineteenth century and 
New England, and how will it appear to us ? You 
meet a pious, enthusiastic young man of your ac- 
quaintance, whom you have not seen for six or seven 
weeks; and, as you shake hands with him, you in- 
quire where he has been. " I've been," says he, " in 
the wilderness." — " What induced you to go to the 
wilderness ? " — " The Spirit led me there, to be 



104 WHAT WAS HE? 

tempted of the Devil." — '' What temptations did he 
present to you?" — "After I had eaten nothing for 
nearly six weeks, and was hungry, he came to me and 
said, ' If thou art the Son of God, make these granite 
bowlders into bread ; ' but I said, ' It is written, Man 
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Then the 
Devi] took me to Boston, and set me upon the sum- 
mit of the State House, and told me to throw myself 
down, for he said the angels would bear me up ; but 
I said, '•Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' 
At last he took me to the top of Mount "Washington, 
and showed me all the countries of the world and 
their glory, and offered to give them all to me if 
I would fall down and worship him ; but I said, 
'Begone, Satan! for it is written. Thou shalt wor- 
ship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou 
serve.' Then he departed, and I saw li,im no more ; 
and angels came and communicated with me." 

Let any man tell us such a story as this, and what 
would our opinion of him be ? Could we do less than 
regard him as extravagant, and even fanatical ? If 
we are to place any confidence in this account, Jesus 
must have told such a story as this ; and it is but one 
of a number of statements made bv the evangelists 
with regard to him that indicate that Jesus belonged 
to the class of religious enthusiasts. 

In Luke vi. 12 we read of his continuing all night 
in prayer. On another occasion, referred to by Mat- 
thew (Matt. xiv. 23), he went on to a mountain to 
pray, and did not return to his disciples before the 
fourth watch of the night, or about six .the next 
morning. 



EXTRAVAGANCE OF JESUS. 105 

Inordinate fasting and prayer are generally asso- 
ciated with religious fanaticism, as they were in the 
case of Mohammed, George Fox, Joseph Smith, and 
others. 

After driving the money-changers out of the tem- 
ple (John ii. 13-15), the Jews very properly asked 
Jesus for a sign by which they might know that he 
had authority from God to do such things : he replied 
(John ii. 19), " Destroy this temple, and in three da3^s 
I will raise it up." There was, of course, no probabil- 
ity of its destruction by them, and hence none of its 
reconstruction by him ; but such extravagant lan- 
guage indicates the condition of the man from whom 
it proceeded. 

John's Gospel, it is true, informs us that Jesus 
meant the temple of his body; but it also tells us 
(22d verse) that the disciples only thought of this 
after his resurrection. If he did mean his body, and 
even his disciples did not understand him until after 
his supposed resurrection, how could the Jews under- 
stand him? and what propriety was there in thus talk- 
ing in riddles to them ? 

Many of the sayings of Jesus are very extravagant : 
" Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or 
what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye 
shall put on " (Matt. vi. 25). That he really means 
what he says, his illustrations show : " Behold the 
fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ? 
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit 
unto his stature ? And why take ye thought for rai- 



106 WHAT WAS HE? 

ment? Consider the lilies of the field, how thev 
grow : they toil not, neither do they spin. . . . Where- 
fore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, . . . 
shall he not much more clothe you ? " 

This is the language of one who lives in a miracu- 
lous world created by his imagination. A man can 
add nothing to his height by thinking about it ; but 
he can add materially to his wardrobe by thinking 
about his clothes, and acting accordingly ; and he 
cannot do the necessary action without thought. 

" Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that 
would borrow of thee turn not thou away " (Matt. 
V. 42) ; " Lend, hoping for nothing again " (Luke 
vi. 35) ; " Of him that taketh away thy goods, ask 
them not again" (Luke vi. 30). 

For men who had nothing to give or to lend, this 
was doubtless a very pleasant Gospel; for they could 
only be benefited by its acceptance : but, unless 
Jesus intended that his followers should form a com- 
munity, such ideas presented for universal accept- 
ance are exceedingly extravagant, and to embody 
them in daily life is utterly impossible. 

" If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, 
and cast them from thee : it is better for thee to enter 
into life halt or maimed, rather than, having two 
hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. 
And, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee : it is better for thee to enter into life 
with one eye, rather than, having two eyes, to be cast 
into hell-fire." And in Mark is added, ''into the fire 
that never shall be quenched; where their worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" which was 
very probably the original expression. 



EXTRAVAGANCE OF JESUS. 107 

We are told that this has a spiritual meaning. 
But Avhat kind of a spiritual meaning can we gather 
from such a passage? The only spiritual meaning 
that can be legitimately drawn from it is, that some- 
thing as valuable, as useful, and as natural, as a hand, 
a foot, or an eye, if it troubles or insnares us, should 
be destroyed, so that we may escape everlasting fire. 
Such a doctrine, carried out, w^ould make eunuchs of 
more than half of mankind. It would be much bet- 
ter to teach people to make a good use of all their 
organs and powers, rather than to cut them off or 
destroy them. 

Then we have many such extravagant expressions 
as these : '' Whosoever shall say unto this mountain. 
Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea ; and 
shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that 
those things which he saith shall come to pass ; he 
shall have whatsoever he saith." We may naturalljj 
conclude that the faith of Jesus was of the undoubt- 
ing kind. But Hermon shows to-day his snow-streaked 
head, Carmel's ridge overlooks the Mediterranean, 
and Tabor's cone still greets the traveller's eye, as 
when Mary's boy ran barefoot over the hills of Gali- 
lee. A mountain moved at the command of Jesus 
would have done more to establish his claim than all 
his so-called miracles, had they been multiplied a 
thousand-fold. 

In the tenth chapter of Luke we are told that Jesus 
sent out seventy disciples to preach and heal ; and they 
returned with joy, telling him that even the devils 
were subject to them through his name. Jesus says, 
" I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Be- 



108 - WHAT WAS HE? 

hold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and 
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy ; and 
nothing shall by any means hurt you." A man that 
nothing could hurt would be an immortal man, that 
fire could not burn, knife cut, fall bruise, or water 
drown. One such man presenting himself before the 
Jewish people, and allowing them to test his power, 
would have done more to establish the claim of Jesus 
than all he did ; made it, indeed, unquestionable. 
They fasten him to a stake, and heap up fagots which 
blaze around him ; but he walks out unharmed, tread- 
ing the ashes beneath his feet. They tie a millstone 
to his neck, and cast him into the lake ; but in a few 
minutes he swims safely to shore. They cut at him 
with their swords, but are unable to see the slightest 
wound. They thrust spears into him ; but they leave 
no more impression than they would on water. From 
the top of a tower thej^ drop an immense stone upon 
his head : the stone passes through him ; he smiles, 
and w^alks on. Single-handed, such a man would 
have annihilated the whole Roman army, and the 
world would have been at his mercy. 

Nowhere is the extravagance of Jesus more evident 
than in the following passage : " If any man come 
unto me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife 
and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his 
own life also, he cannot be my disciple " (Luke xiv. 
26). This is not the language of an impostor, nor is 
it what any friend of Jesus would be likely to at- 
tribute to him unless he really said it, or something 
closely resembling it. It must be one of his genuine 
utterances 5 and yet what can be more extravagant 



SELF-ESTEEM OF JESUS. 109 

and unnatural ? I do not wonder, when such sayings 
as these are taken into account, that even his friends, 
as we are informed in Mark iii. 21, thought he was 
deranged, and that many of the Jews said (John x. 
20), ''He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye 
Mm?" 

Jesus manifests also an overweening egotism that 
is very common with religious enthusiasts, and is fre- 
quently an inducing cause of their extravagant pre- 
tensions. His organ of self-esteem must have been 
either very large, or it was unnaturally excited. In- 
deed, it seems very probable that in the latter part of 
his life the whole coronal region of the brain was 
highly excited, and self-esteem in consequence of its 
proximity to the neighboring faculties. After casting 
out devils, the scribes said (Mark iii. 22) that he 
did it by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. This he 
calls blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and declares 
that it never can be forgiven, though all other sins 
and blasphemies should be forgiven. The greatest of 
all crimes, in the eyes of Jesus, was to deny his claims ; 
and the greatest of all virtues, to accept them. 

The very commencement of his preaching mani- 
fests this self-esteem : " The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand " (Mark i. 15) ; or as 
Benjamin Wilson more correctly, as I think, trans- 
lates it in his Emphatic Diaglott, " The time has 
been accomplished, and God's royal majesty has ap- 
proached." When the Pharisees asked him when 
the kingdom of God should come, he answers, '' The 
kingdom of God is within you " (Luke xvii. 21) ; or, 
as it reads in the margin, " among you; " or, as Wil- 



110 WHAT WAS HE? 

son translates tlie whole passage, " God's royal majesty 
is among 3"0U." 

The text for most of the sermons of Jesus is him- 
self. Not more truly did Paul preach Jesus than 
Jesus preached himself. The kingdom of heaven of 
which he discourses is the kingdom that he estab- 
lishes, and of which he is at times the king, and at 
other times the king's son. The least in that king- 
dom, according to him, is greater than the greatest in 
any other kingdom. He was possessed with the idea 
that he was the Messiah, and he gave his life to its 
realization. He preached, for the Messiah was to 
preach ; he healed, for the Messiah was to heal ; 
he did not seek to escape his fate, for the Messiah 
was to be numbered with the transgressors, and to be 
cut off. 

Had all the lost Gospels been preserved, I think 
we should have had many manifestations of this ego- 
tism that are wanting in our present Gospels; still 
more if we could have had an accurate report of his 
sayings. John the disciple never wrote the Gospel of 
John, nor was it written till long after the death of 
Jesus ; but although written late, and not by a Jew, 
and differing widely from the synoptic Gospels, it 
evidently gives us many of the actual sayings of the 
Nazarene that had escaped previous collectors. It 
appears to contain much that came originally from 
some one well acquainted with many of the facts. 
As Jesus is represented in John, he and God are in 
company, and no man can come to the Father but 
by hhu. So closely are they connected, that God 
will give whatever is asked for in the name of Jesus. 



SELF-ESTEEM OF JESUS. Ill 

He says, " I am the bread of life ; " ''I came down 
fi'om heaven ; " ''- All men should honor the Son even 
as they honor the Father." Is it surprising that men 
who accept these extravagant claims believe in the 
Godhead of Jesus? Again he says, '^He that be- 
lieveth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he 
that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but 
the wrath of God abideth on him." The man who 
threatens those who do not believe in him shoAvs his 
inability to lead them to believe by proper means, 
and is to be suspected ; for he is trying to shut their 
eyes, and induce them to accept his leadership before 
their reason is convinced, or in opposition to their 
reason. He is the last man. in whom enlightened men 
of the present day would have confidence. The 
intelligent Pharisees who heard Jesus no doubt 
thought, if they did not say, ''I care not where jon 
came from, nor whose son you are : if you can teach 
us any truth, we are here to receive it, and shall be 
most thankful for it ; but we are not to be blinded 
by your extravagant pretensions, and thus receive 
as truth w^hat is merely the product of your imagina- 
tion." 

He also informs us (Matt. vii. 22) that many will 
say to him in the last day, '' Lord, have we not 
prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many 
wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto them, 
I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work 
iniquit3^" Men have associated such language with 
the idea of the Godhead of Jesus, and thus disguised 
its extreme arrogance. 

When a Roman centurion called him Lord (Matt. 



112 WHAT WAS HE?' 

viii. 8), and said he was not worthy that Jesus should 
come under his roof, but desired him to speak the 
word, and his servant should be healed, this so 
gratified him, contrasted as it must have been in his 
mind with the treatment that he had received from 
the Jews, that he declared he had not found so great 
faith, — no, not in Israel. "Many shall come," he 
adds, " from the east and west, and sit down with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of 
heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be 
cast out into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping, 
and gnashing of teeth." It is evident that those who 
were to come from the east and west, and receive the 
heavenly privileges, were those who believed in and 
accepted him ; and those children of the kingdom 
who were to be cast into outer darkness were those 
who could not believe in, and had therefore rejected 
hmi. 

The idea of Jesus is, that even Gentiles who ac- 
knowledged his pretensions should receive God's 
favor, and live in his kingdom of delights ; while the 
Jews who rejected him should be cast out forever. 
The faith of Jesus in his Messiahship swallowed 
up his patriotism, and greatly modified his religion. 

On one occasion Jesus asks his disciples (Matt, 
xvi. 13), '' Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, 
am?" They tell him that some say he is John the 
Baptist. That does not interest him much : he has 
already said that he who was least in the kingdom of 
heaven was greater than John. " Some Elias, and 
others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." That is 
bqtter; but it falls far short of the estimate that he 



SELF-ESTEEM OF JESUS. 113 

has of himself; and he says, " But whom say ye that 
I am?" Peter ansAvers, '' Thoa art the Christ, the 
son of the living God." This strikes the chord of 
his self-esteem, and it vibrates at once, and fills his 
soul with delight ; and he breaks out in extravagant 
praise of Peter : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
Jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but my Father which is in heaven." He tells 
him that he is Peter, or '' rock," as the name signifies ; 
and that upon this rock he will build his church, and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it : and he 
then adds, " I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
This illiterate and by no means impeccable Galilean 
fisherman is made earthly keeper of the heavenly 
gate. If he binds a soul on earth, heaven finds him 
securely bound as Peter left him. The Pope's infalli- 
bility grows as naturally from such statements as oaks 
from acorns. What had Peter done to secure such 
an enviable position ? Nothing, save to gratify his 
Master's self-esteem; and he was just as ready to 
deny Jesus as to acknowledge him when circum- 
stances pressed him sorely ; while Jesus was just as 
ready to say to Peter when he offended him, '' Get 
thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto 
me ; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, 
but those that be of men " (Matt. xvi. 23). But 
the other da}^ Peter was greater than the angels; 
and now he is the very devil ! 

Nothing but absolute devotion satisfies Jesus : he 



114 WHAT WAS HE? 

can brook no rivals. " He that loveth father or 
mother more than me is unworthy of me, and he 
that loveth son or daughter more than me is un- 
worthy of me " (Matt. x. 37). When one says, 
'' Suffer me first to go and bury my father," promis- 
ing then to follow him, Jesus replies, "Let the dead 
bury their dead : follow thou me." Filial respect is 
eclipsed by the shadow of this colossus. All things 
are of the smallest importance compared with belief 
in and obedience to him. 

The disciples of Jesus dispute about who shall be 
greatest ; but this cannot be allowed. " One is your 
Master," saj^s he, ''even Christ; and all ye are breth- 
ren." It is a matter of no importance what your 
relative relations may be ; but never forget that I am 
the Master. They can only be his friends, he tells 
them, by doing what he commands them. In other 
words, no man can be his friend who is not first his 
servant. If any man will come after him, he must 
deny himself^ and take up his cross, and follow him 
(Matt. xvi. 24). A man had better deny all men 
and all gods rather than deny himself. Then he 
plainly declares that he who would save his life, and 
refuses to do this, will lose it ; but whosoever would 
lose his life for his sake should find it. He asks; 
" What is he profited who gains the whole world, and 
loses his soul?" — the man who saves his soul being 
the man who denies himself, and follows Jesus ; while 
the man who does not, from fear of consequences or 
from love of independence, is to lose his soul I Alas ! 
the man who does deny himself has lost his soul 
already. 



DENUNCIATIONS OF JESUS. 115 

It is true he says, " Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Di- 
vine words they seem, and full of comfort to the 
burdened soul who is ready to fall upon the bosom of 
the Christly comforter, till he hears, " Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me ; " and the true man shrinks 
from one who promises rest, but imposes yokes. The 
rest of Jesus is only for those who bow to his author- 
ity, and acknowledge him as their Master. 

Jesus denounces those who do not believe in him, 
and reject him, as religious fanatics so generally do. 
Mohammed says, " Surely they who believe not, and 
die in their unbelief, upon them shall be the curse of 
God and of the angels and of all men ; they shall re- 
main under it forever ; their punishment shall not be 
alleviated, neither shall they be regarded ; . . . their 
dwelling-place shall be the fire of hell, and the recep- 
tacle of the wicked shall be miserable." 

Jesus says, " If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall 
die in your sins." The principal people of Chorazin, 
Bethsaida, and Capernaum, fishing-towns on the Gali- 
lean lake, paid but little attention to his doctrine, or, 
in the language of Matthew, " they repented not;" 
and he thus fulminates his anathemas against them : 
'' Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! w^oe unto thee, Beth- 
saida ! for, if the mighty works which were done in 
joM had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would 
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But 
I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre 
and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you." 
Capernaum, exalted to heaven, is to be brought down 
to hell ; and it is to be more tolerable for Sodom in 
the day of judgment. 



116 WHAT WAS HE? 

It is common for religious fanatics to denounce 
all others, and warn their followers against them. 
Moseilama, the greatest rival prophet whom Moham- 
med's success called into activity, once wrote to him, 
" Moseilama the apostle of God to Mohammed the 
apostle of God, — Now let the earth be half mine and 
half thine." Mohammed replied as laconically, "Mo- 
hammed the apostle of God to Moseilama the liar, — 
The earth is God's : he giveth it to such of his ser- 
vants as he pleaseth, and they who fear him shall 
prosper." 

" Who is more wicked," saith Mohammed, " than 
he who forgeth a lie concerning God ? or who saith, 
' This was revealed unto me,' when nothing has been 
revealed unto him? " He threatens them with an ig- 
nominious punishment in the day when the pangs of 
death shall seize them ; never thinking that other 
men might believe just as honestly as himself that 
they had messages from God. Moses warns the 
Israelites against false prophets, and declares (Deut. 
xiii. 1-5), that if they even performed signs and won- 
ders, but taught the people to follow other gods, they 
should be put to death. Jesus says, " All that ever 
came before me are thieves and robbers ; " referring, 
probably, to the many pretended Messiahs that had 
preceded him. And again, "If any man shall say 
unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not ; 
for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, 
and shall show great signs and wonders." But if 
they show great signs and wonders, and signs and 
wonders are the evidences of a man's messiahship, 
why should not men regard them as true Christs 



DENUNCIATIONS OF JESUS. 117 

and prophets ? In the eyes of a fanatic, he is a true 
prophet who says the fanatic is one ; and he who 
denies, it matters not Avhat he may teach or do, is 
a false prophet, and to be denounced. 

When sceptics came and very reasonably asked him 
for a sign of his Messiahship, he called them '' an evil 
and adulterous generation," and declared that no sign 
should be given them. If any man should in this 
day set up for a miraculouslj^ sent messenger of 
God, we should very naturally ask him for the evi- 
dence ; and, if he abused us for so doing, our faith in 
him would certainly not be increased by his conduct. 

The scribes and Pharisees, who were more critical 
than the fishermen of Galilee, and less disposed, there- 
fore, to cry hosanna, receive his supreme malediction. 
He calls them " hypocrites, blind guides, fools ; " he 
compares them to '' whited sepulchres," and exclaims, 
" Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can )'e 
escape the damnation of hell?" Had Jesus been 
what he professed to be, he could have satisfied the 
scribes and Pharisees of his messiahship, and they 
would, without doubt, have received him gladly ; but 
his whole manner must have convinced them that he 
was not the Messiah their prophets had led them to 
expect, and they could do no other than reject him. 

Jesus is not satisfied with cursing his rejecters in 
this life, but, like Mohammed, threatens them with 
damnation in another world. This is the most terri- 
ble tiling that a religious enthusiast can do. Had 
Jesus been a philosopher, he would have known that 
the judgment can only be convinced by evidence, and 
that some persons, by virtue of their mental consti- 



118 WHAT WAS HE? 

tution, demand much more evidence than others. 
But of this he knew nothing, or he never would 
have said, " He that believeth not shall be damned." 
As that sound goes out, there goes with it the death- 
knell of reason. Following it come austere monk, 
superstitious nun, infallible pope, rack and gibbet, 
the burning martyr, and the long night of the dark 
ages. This is the root of Christian intolerance, which 
bore for ages, and still bears, most deadly fruit. 

In the last day, those who have fed, clothed, and 
visited the believers in him are to ascend into his 
kingdom, and enjoy eternal life ; but those who have 
neglected or refused to feed, clothe, or visit the be- 
lievers in him are to depart from his presence into 
" everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his 
angels " (Matt. xxv. 31-46). Blessed believers ! 
they not only save themselves, but every one w^ho 
is charitable to them. But woe unto those who have 
neither believed nor assisted the believers ! their 
dwelling-place will be the fiery pit, whose flames 
are everlasting, and their companions the Devil and 
his slaves. 

Like most fanatics, he also makes extravagant 
promises to those who believe in and obey him. 

Mohammed promises to every believer eighty 
thousand servants, and seventy-two girls of paradise, 
besides his own former wives if he should wish 
for them. He is to dwell in a tent adorned with 
pearls, jacinths, and emeralds ; three hundred dishes 
are to be set before each at once, and the last morsel 
is to be as pleasant to the taste as the first ; there will 
also be an abundance of wine, but it will be of a kind 



THE PROMISES OF JESUS. 119 

that will not intoxicate ; lie will be clothed in the 
richest silks and brocades, which will grow on the 
trees of paradise ; and he will be forever young, to 
enjoy all these things. 

The promises of Jesus, though less sensual, are more 
inviting. To his disciples he says, " Ye are they that 
have continued with me in my temptations ; and I 
appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath ap- 
pointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my 
table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the 
twelve tribes " (Luke xxii. 28-30). What a magnifi- 
cent promise for fishermen who were too poor to pay 
their taxes ! The throne of the Caesars could never 
have looked as inviting as the Jewish kingdom here 
promised, — - each a prince, to sit on a throne, and sway 
a sceptre over a tribe, and sit at the same table and 
eat and drink with the Universal Lord. 

Some of them had left all, and followed him; and 
to these he makes this comforting promise : '' Every 
one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for 
my name's sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and 
shall inherit everlasting life " (Matt. xix. 29). For 
every house, a hundred houses ; for every brother, a 
hundred brothers ; for every wife, a hundred wives ; 
for every child, a hundred children ; for every farm, a 
hundred farms ; and eternal life ! Who that believed 
could refuse to abandon all for Jesus ? The impossi- 
birty of this never seems to have staggered the credu- 
lous disciples, who followed gladly the man, who, 
though so poor that he had not where to lay his 
head, was yet rich in magnificent promises. 



120 WHAT WAS HE? 

Again he says, " If ye abide in me, and my wordii 
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall 
be done unto j^ou" (John xv. 7). That is compre- 
hensive ; it is exhaustive. It furnishes a supply com- 
mensurate with the needs of body and soul now and 
forever. Had there been any truth in the statement, 
one of these poor Galilean wanderers could have 
saved the whole Jewish people ; and surely the desire 
to do it could not have been wanting. 

WHAT MADE JESUS AK ENTHUSIAST? 

First, doubtless, some peculiarity of mental or 
spiritual constitution, with whose nature we are but 
little acquainted. The form that it took in Jesus 
was in consequence of the belief that he had in his 
Messiahship. The Jews, weaker than the surround- 
ing nations, could only expect to cope with them by 
supernatural help, which they believed had been re- 
peatedly granted to their nation ; and whenever they 
were overpowered and oppressed, as they supposed 
on account of their sins, they still hoped for deliver- 
ance by the arm of the '' Lord of hosts." Their hopes 
centred in the idea of a Messiah, a great deliverer 
and savior, anointed or consecrated by Jehovah to 
restore their country to a condition of prosperity, and 
give the Jews universal dominion. About the time 
of the advent of Jesus, the nation, under the heel of 
Rome, was looking for this deliverer, who alone could 
bring consolation to Israel. Dr. Keim says, " It be- 
comes clear, that the ctj of Messiah, the Christ, of 
the kingdom of the great King, the kingdom of 
Heaven, the throne and seed of David, all these old 



BOOK OF ENOCH. 121 

sayings of the prophets, continued in the later books 
of Daniel, Enoch, the Sibylline Books, the psalms of 
Solomon, and also in the Targumim, formulated and 
sown broadcast among the people, were on every 
man's lips in the days of John the Baptist and of 
Jesus, in Judaea, in Galilee, and even in Samaria : on 
the one hand, in the people's mouth, and in that 
of the Pharisees, as the son of David, who should be 
their political king and leader ; on the other, in the 
mouth of John, of Jesus, and of his disciples, as a 
spiritual savior. For the cry was uttered in very 
necessity, and it was proclrdmed by each man as he 
was able to understand it." ^ 

The mother of Jesus was influenced by this, as her 
parents must have been before her. Jesus was proba- 
bly begotten to be the Messiah, carried by his mother 
while big with the expectation that her child would 
be the Messiah, born in Bethlehem to be the Messiah, 
trained by his mother to be the Messiah. It is no won- 
der that he became possessed by the idea, the ruling 
idea of his life ; and that, more than all else, made 
him the enthusiast that he was. This belief per- 
meated his whole being ; it assisted in giving him 
that lofty and egotistic attitude which he so fre- 
quently assumed; it inspired his language, and 
moulded his life : and, unless we bear this in mind as 
we read the Gospels, we are unable to account for 
much that this idea makes perfectly clear. 

The Book of Enoch, quoted by Jude, who is sup- 
posed to have been the brother of Jesus, shows the 
opinion of the writer, and probably of the Jews of 

1 Keiiii's Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. p. 315. 



122 WHAT WAS HE? 

his time, regarding the Messiah. If Jude was the 
brother of Jesus, Enoch may have been a family 
book in the home of Joseph ; and we can imagine 
Jesus reading, while jet a boy, with great eagerness, 
many of its passages, drinking in their spirit, and sub- 
sequently breathing them out in his discourses. The 
Messiah, according to this book, is the Son of God : 
God is represented as saying, '' I and m^/ son will for- 
ever hold communion with them in the paths of 
upi*ightness " (chap. civ. 2).^ Jesus frequently rep- 
resents himself as the Son of God, while at the 
same time he more frequently calls himself the Son 
of man. He is to sit on " the throne of his glory " 
in the day of judgment : all nations are to be gath- 
ered before him ; he is to separate them, and drive 
the wicked from his presence. The Book of Enoch, 
a hundred years before, had assigned this work to 
the Son of man. "He sat upon the throne of his 
glory ; and the principal part of the judgment was 
assigned to him, the Son of man. Sinners shall dis- 
appear and perish from the face of the earth, while 
those who seduced them shall be bound with chains 
forever" (chap. Ixviii. 29). "This Son of man^ 
whom thou beholdest, shall raise up kings and the 
mighty from their couches, and the powerful from 
their thrones. He shall hurl kings from their thrones 
and their dominions, because they will not exalt and 
praise him, nor humble themselves before him, by 
whom their kingdoms were granted to them. . . . 
Darkness shall be their habitation, and worms shall 
be their bed " (chap. xlvi. 3, 4). 

^ Book of Enoch, traoislated by Archbishop Lawrence. Oxford, 
3d edition. 



BOOK OF ENOCH. 123 

Jesus taught that he existed before he came into 
the world: '' Before Abraham was, I am." The Book 
of Enoch teaches the pre-existence of the Messiah : 
'' From the beginning the Son of man existed in 
secret, whom the Most High preserved in the pres- 
ence of his power, and revealed to the elect " (chap. 
Ixi. 10). '' Before the sun and the signs were created, 
before the stars of heaven were formed, his name was 
invoked in the presence of the Lord of spirits " 
(chap, xlviii. 3). 

The sentence which Jesus pronounces upon the 
wicked is, to go into '^ everlasting fire," to be cast 
into " a furnace of fire," where the pain is to be so 
great, that there will be weeping and wailing, and 
gnashing of teeth. Such a doctrine he did not find 
in the Old Testament ; but he may have found it in 
the Book of Enoch, where it is very plainly set forth : 
" Has it not been shown to them, when to the recepta- 
cle of the dead their souls shall be made to descend, 
their evil deeds shall become their greatest torment ? 
Into darkness, into the snare, and into the flame 
which shall burn to the great judgment, shall their 
spirits enter; and the great judgment shall take 
effect forever and forever" (chap. ciii. 5). ''With 
disgrace, with slaughter, and in extreme penury, 
shall their spirits be thrust into a furnace of fire " 
(chap. xcvi. 11). "Woe to you, ye sinners! for 
with the words of your mouths, and with the work 
of 3'our hands, have you acted impiously: in the 
flame of a blazing fire shall you be burnt" (chap, 
xcix. 7). "Shall then cast them into a furnace of 
blazing fire " (chap. liii. 6). 



124 WHAT WAS HE? 

The writer of the Book of Enoch was largely in- 
debted to the book of Daniel, — a work written, not 
by Daniel, but by some boastful Jew, probably about 
a hundred years before the Book of Enoch. Jesus 
was no doubt indebted to both ; and by reading them 
we may see whence came some of the features of the 
grand idea which so completely possessed him. 

After looking over the temple with his disciples, 
(Matt, xxiv.), and admiring the massive stones of 
which it was composed, Jesus makes the remark, 
'' There shall not be left here one stone upon another 
which shall not be thrown down." The disciples ask 
him when it shall be ; what shall be the sign of his 
coming, and the end of the world. His reply would 
be very likely to impress itself upon the memory of 
those who heard ; for it contains much that must have 
been of great interest to them. From it we can ob- 
tain an idea of the grand position that he supposed 
himself to occupy, the magnificent destiny that 
awaited him, and see the images that were presented 
to his glowing imagination, — the key to so much in 
his life (Matt, xxiv., xxv.). After a time of tribu- 
lation and anguish, which should, however, be short, 
the sun is to be darkened, the moon to withhold 
her light, and the stars to fall from heaven; and 
the Son of man to come with the clouds of heaven, 
and all the holy angels with him, with power and 
great glory ; and all the tribes of the earth are to 
mourn. The Son of man will send his angels, who, 
with a great sound of a trumpet, shall gather his elect 
from one end of heaven to the other. Then he will 
sit on the throne of his glory, and all nations will be 



END OF THE WORLD. 125 

gathered before him ; and he will separate them as a 
shepherd does the sheep and goats, placing the sheep 
on his right hand, and the goats on the left. Those 
on the right hand are his friends, — those who have 
believed in and assisted him or his followers : those 
on his left hand are his personal enemies, who have 
rejected him, or neglected his followers. He pro- 
nounces the sentence in the presence of all earth and 
heaven ; and they go to everlasting punishment, but 
the righteous into life eternal. 

With this magnificent pageant almost constantly 
before his mind, he was lifted above the people that 
surrounded him, and spoke at times as if already 
seated upon that throne, and wielding the destinies 
of all mankind. The commencement of his public 
ministrations was the beginning of that kingdom of 
God, or heaven as he sometimes terms it; and its 
consummation will be when he comes in the clouds 
of heaven. When he says, " The kingdom of God is 
among you," — not " within you," as King James's 
translators make it, — he refers to its advent in his 
own person. When the mother of James and John 
craves a place for her children on each side of him 
in his kingdom, he does not say, " You are mis- 
taken with regard to the nature of my Idngdom." 
They evidently had the ideas on the subject that 
Jesus had taught them. When we read (Mark viii. 
38) that whoever is ashamed of him and of his words 
he will be ashamed of when he comes in the glory of 
his Father and the holy angels, we can see the lofty 
eminence on which he stands, and views the pygmies 
at the foot. We can see what is meant when he 



126 WHAT WAS HE? 

says, " Whoever gives a cup of cold water to another 
because he belongs to him shall not lose his reward;" 
and why he says it will be better for a man to be 
snnk in the sea, with a millstone about his neck, than 
to offend one of his little ones. 

It was the most magnificent idea that was ever 
held by a sane mind ; and no man, less intellectual, 
broad, and self-reliant, could have been as true to 
this loftj^ ideal as Jesus was. He never loses sight 
of it. It is the sun that illumines his way at every 
step. The parables of the great supper, of the house- 
holder, of the tares, of the net, of the ten virgins, and 
of the talents, have this for their basis. It is the 
text of most of his discourses. When the Roman 
centurion displays great faith in Jesus, while his own 
brethren rejected him with scorn, and he says, ^^ Many 
shall come from the east and west," &c., in imagina- 
tion he sits upon the throne of his glory, welcomes his 
friends, and punishes his enemies. At the last supper 
he declares he will drink no more wine till he drinks 
it new in the kingdom of God, where he expected 
to reign as King of kings, his disciples seated upon 
twelve subordinate thrones ruling over the twelve 
tribes of Israel, and Jesus and they enjoying all the 
bliss that God can bestow. 

As a result of this belief, Jesus supposed that the 
end of the world was very near. He expected to 
come in the clouds of heaven before his disciples 
could visit all the cities of Israel (Matt. x. 23). 
This is probably the reason why he never established 
any church, or made provision for its establishment ; 
why he never wrote his ideas, and why he never 



DID JESUS DIE UPON THE CKOSS ? 127 

married ; why lie cared so little about making prose- 
lytes ; and perhaps is one reason why he displayed so 
little suavity to those who differed from him in 
opinion. 

The disciples imbibed this idea of the nearness of 
the end from Jesus. '' The end of all things is at 
hand " (1 Pet. iv. 7). '' We look for new heavens and 
a new earth " (2 Pet. iii. 13). '' The coming of the 
Lord draweth nigh " (Jas. v. 8). '' Little children, 
it is the last time" (1 John ii. 18). But, as the 
Lord came not, thej^ resorted to the explanation, 
which some even offer to day, which makes Jesus 
guilty of deceiving millions of his trusting believers : 
" A day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day." When gods converse 
with gods, they may use divine language ; but, 
when they talk to men, they must speak according 
to our understanding of words, or they cannot fail to 
deceive us. 

DID JESUS DIE UPON THE CEOSS? 

But we are told that the resurrection of Jesus 
demonstrates that he was no mere enthusiast, but 
was in reality what he claimed ; '' God having de- 
monstrated his Messiahship by raising him from the 
dead." 

The resurrection has well been regarded as the 
very foundation of Christianity. Well did Paul 
write, '' If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is also vain." So fundamental 
did he regard the doctrine, that he declares, " If 
Christ is not risen, those who have fallen asleep in 



128 WHAT WAS HE? 

Christ [or, in other words, those Christians who had 
died] have perished, and the believers in him are of 
all men most miserable." It is evident, that, if the 
resurrection of Jesus had been taken from the Chris- 
tianity of Paul, there would have been nothing left 
but a ruin. 

I think, however, that very few intelligent unpreju- 
diced persons, at the age of maturity, can accept the 
literal resurrection of the body of Jesus on such 
evidence as the Gospels furnish. 

If Jesus really died upon the cross, his spirit de- 
parted from the body on Friday afternoon. Where 
was he during the thirty-six hours that intervened 
between his death and resurrection ? Was he a pure 
spirit travelling over the earth? or was he uncon- 
scious ? for, according to his statement to Mary Mag- 
dalene after his resurrection, he had not ascended 
to heaven. The body is only the drapery of the 
man : when Jesus died, he laid the drapery down. 
Did he, after being absent from the body for thirty- 
six hours, return, and take it up again? and, if he did, 
what became of it when he finally left it and ascend- 
ed to heaven? for surely few intelligent persons 
can believe that Jesus passed into the spiritual state 
with his material body. In addition to this, the con- 
duct of Jesus after his supposed resurrection is not 
at all Avhat we might reasonably expect had the 
resurrection been real. Why should he spend the 
first day in merely speaking a few words to Mary 
Magdalene, the " other women,'' and Peter, a few 
hours toward evening with two of his disciples, and 
then m^ike a short visit to the eleven at night ? Why 



DID THE SPIRIT OF JESUS APPEAli? 129 

did he not visit his heart-broken mother, and console 
her? If Jesus rose with his physical body, flesh, 
blood, and bones, that body must have required 
space, clothes, and food : shelter would be necessary 
for it, and sleep would be required. Where did Jesus 
lodge ? How was he occupied from the first Sunday, 
when he appeared to his disciples, until the next, 
when he appeared again ? 

In Acts it is declared that he did not ascend for 
forty days, — nearly six weeks ; and yet during that 
time, judging from the Gospel accounts, he was seen 
altogether not more than a few hours. In six weeks' 
time he might have visited every town in Judaea and 
Galilee, confronted and converted his enemies, and 
ministered consolation to multitudes of waiting^ souls. 
He could have appeared to Pilate, and melted the 
old Roman down with one glance of his eye. The 
whole Jewish Sanhedrim at the sight of the death- 
conqueror would have cried, " He is the Messiah, and 
we are his disciples!" A look at that face, upon 
which his enemies spit, and which the soldiers struck, 
would have brought them in a moment to their knees. 
Why should the Lord of life and death, who had 
conquered the grave, merely appear like a meteor 
for a moment to a dozen of his friends, and then 
" vanish out of their sight " before a single unbe- 
liever could obtain a glimpse of him ? 

Some persons suppose that the disciples of Jesus 
stole his body away, and then invented the stories of 
his resurrection, as the Jews probably supposed, after 
they heard of his re-appearance. These ignorant and 
simple-hearted Galileans, trembling for their own 



130 WHAT WAS HE? 

lives, the boldest denying him when they thought 
that their leader was dead, were not the men to at- 
tempt such a thing ; and, if they had, the Gospels 
would have been the last books in which we should 
find that they doubted and disbelieved in the resur- 
rection after they had heard it from their friends, 
and even after they had seen the man. 

That many followers of Jesus did believe that they 
had seen the man alive whom they knew to have 
been crucified, appears evident. How otherwise 
shall we account for the wide acceptance of the 
resurrection of Jesus at so early a period? It must 
have been the result of the preaching of men who 
were in earnest, and to whom something must have 
occurred to make them so. The rapid spread of 
Christianity, of which this is the basic doctrine, is 
difiicult to account for, unless something occurred to 
satisfy the early propagators of it that Jesus, whom 
they had seen to all appearance dead, had afterward 
appeared to them alive. 

Mohammedanism, it is true, spread with great 
rapidity after it was established : but Mohammed 
was evidently sincere in the belief that he received 
revelations from the angel Gabriel, and this sincerity 
seems to have been the mainspring of his power; 
while a comparatively long life, and an appeal to 
arms in which his fanatical believers were generally 
successful, helped materially to spread his faith. 

Many believe that the spirit of Jesus appeared to 
his disciples, and they in their ignorance supposed it 
to be his veritable body. Spiritual appearances to- 
day are too common for us to doubt of their possibil- 



DID THE SPIRIT OF JESUS APPEAR? 131 

ity in past time. But, if we accept the spiritual 
appearance of Jesus, how shall Ave then account for 
the disappearance of the body, in which all the 
evangelists agree, and the general belief in the resur- 
rection, which could only take place as the result of 
the disappearance of the body ? And if we accept 
the statement that he ate with the disciples, and that 
he claimed to have flesh and bones, his appearance 
could not have been a spiritual one. Then there is 
the difficulty for him to find a suitable medium 
through whom to make such remarkable materializing 
manifestations as in that case he must have done ; or 
the improbability of all his disciples being clairvoy- 
ants, and thus seeing his spiritual body. 

Since the appearance of Jesus after the crucifixion 
seems necessary to account for the known facts of 
Christianity, and since it does not appear to have 
been a spiritual one, we naturally regard it as physi- 
cal, the appearance of the man in proper person, the 
crucifixion having failed to extinguish life. 

If we should hear of a man who was hung for 
murder being afterward seen by his friends, if we 
had any confidence in their statements we should 
naturally suppose that the hanging did not really kill 
him. Ambrose Gwynett was hung and afterwards 
gibbeted for a supposed murder, yet was taken down 
by friends, who discovered that he was aiive, and 
had the pleasure subsequently of seeing the man for 
whose supposed murder he was hung, he having been 
carried off by a press-gang. 

From the accounts given by Matthew and Luke, 
we learn that Jesus was on the cross from the sixth 



132 WHAT WAS HE? 

hour to fhe nintli hour, or from noon to three o'clock 
in the afternoon ; and, had we these narrations alone, 
we might suppose that his death occurred after he 
had hung upon the cross for three hours, the time 
during which we are told " there was darkness over 
all the land." But Mark informs us that he was 
crucified at the third hour, or at nine o'clock in the 
morning; and ''gave up the ghost" about the ninth 
hour, or three in the afternoon, the time of his death 
according to Matthew and Luke : so that, if Mark 
is correct, he must have hung on the cross about six 
hours. 

It is difiicult, however, to conceive how he could 
have been crucified as early as nine o'clock, when we 
consider, according to the statements of the evangel- 
ists, what was done that morning. As soon as it 
was day (Luke xxii. 06), — and that could not have 
been earlier than half-past five, as it was about the 
middle of April, — " the elders of the people and the 
chief priests and scribes came together, and led him 
unto their council," before which he was examined. 
If this examination before the council occupied but 
half an hour (and we cannot suppose it to have taken 
less), when finished it was six o'clock. Jesus was 
then bound, carried away, and delivered to Pilate 
(Mark xv. 1) : this could hardly have taken up less 
than half an hour more, and this brings us to half- 
past six. Pilate examined Jesus, and heard the accu- 
sations of the chief priests and elders (Matt, xxvii. 
12). He tried to persuade the multitude of the 
innocence of Jesus, and probably more strenuously 
after his wife said that she had "suffered many 



JESUS ON THE CROSS SIX HOURS. 133 

tilings ... in a dream because of him." Learning 
that he was a Galilean, a fact previously unknown to 
him, he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at 
the tmie ; for Galilee was under the jurisdiction of 
Herod. If we suppose the examination before 
Pilate, and delivery to Herod, to have occupied an 
hour more (and surely that is not an extravagant 
Estimate), at the time Jesus stood before Herod it 
was half-past seven o'clock. Herod questioned 
Jesus ''in many words" (Luke xxiii. 9); the chief 
priests and scribes accused him ; and Herod with his 
men of war mocked him, arrayed him in a gorgeous 
robe, and sent him back to Pilate. This must have 
consumed another hour ; and, when he appeared the 
second time before Pilate, it must have been at least 
half-past eight. Pilate called together the chief 
priests and the rulers and the people (Luke xxiii. 13), 
to confer with them about the disposition to be made 
of Jesus ; then he was scourged, and delivered to 
the soldiers, who led him " into the hall called Prse- 
torium," stripped him, put on him a scarlet robe and 
a crown of thorns, and bowed before him in mock 
homage ; then they took off tha garments of pre- 
tended royalty, and put on him his own clothes. 
This conference, the scourging, stripping, dressing, 
and mockerv, cannot have taken less time than an 
hour and a half ; but this brings us to ten o'clock. 
Then Jesus was led to Golgotha, which was outside 
of the city ; he carrying his cross according to John, 
or Simon a Cyrenian according to the other evangel- 
ists ; the probability being that he bore it a portion 
of the way. This walk to Golgotha, and all the 



134 WHAT WAS HE? 

preparations for the crucifixion, could not well have 
occupied less than an hour ; and it must apparently 
have been at least eleven o'clock when Jesus Avas 
crucified. It would be easy to lengthen the time, 
but it is not easy to see how it could be shortened; 
and if Jesus was crucified at eleven o'clock, and died 
at three in the afternoon, he hung on the cross only 
four hours. 

And this is as long a period as John's narrative 
will allow. About the sixth hour, he informs us 
(John xix. 14) that Jesus was being examined 
before Pilate, — that is, at noon; though, according 
to Mark, he had already been hanging on the cross for 
three hours. After sentence had been pronounced, 
he was led to Golgotha, bearing his cross ; and yet 
his body was given up to Joseph of Arimathaea before 
six o'clock in the evening, as at that time the sab- 
bath began. 

The longest period that these narratives allow for 
the suspension of Jesus upon the cross is six hours ; 
and, if any confidence is to be placed in the state- 
ments of three of the Gospels, it was probably much 
less than that. Was this sufficient to produce death? 

Josephus tells us,^ that being sent by Titus, evi- 
dently from the camp at Jerusalem, to the village of 
Tekoah, twelve miles away, 'On his return he saw 
several Jewish captives crucified, three of whom he 
recognized as former acquaintances. He went to 
Titus, and by his entreaties had them taken down 
and cared for. Two of them died under the phy- 
sician's hands, but the third recovered. How long 

1 Preface to ttie Antiquities of tlie Jews. 



DEATH FROM CRUCIFIXION. 135 

they bad been suspended be does not state, but 
certainly longer tban tbe time it took bim to go to 
Jerusalem, procure tbeir release from Titus, and 
return to tbem again ; and we cannot imagine it to 
be less tban tbe time tbat Jesus bung upon tbe cross. 

A young Turk wbo was crucified at Damascus in 
1247, and wbose bands, arms, and feet were nailed, 
lived from tbe noon of Friday to tbe noon of Sunday. 

We bave several accounts of tbe crucifixion of 
certain fanatical women in France, called convul- 
sionaires. One of tbem, nailed through the hands and 
feet^ remained on tbe cross for tbree bours, and, after 
being taken down, speedily recovered. Dr. Merand 
was present. Tbe nails witb wbicb sbe was fastened 
were five incbes long. One of tbese women was 
crucified twenty-tbree times.^ De la Condamine 
witnessed tbe crucifixion of two of tbese women. 
" One of tbem, wbo bad been crucified tbrice before, 
remained on tbe cross for tbree bours. Tbey suf- 
fered most pain from tbe operation of extracting tbe 
nails ; and it was not until tben tbat tbey lost more 
tban a few drops of blood from tbeir wounds. After 
tbey were taken down tbey seemed to suffer little, 
and speedily recovered." Kitto says,^ '' We may 
consider tbirty-six bours to be tbe earliest period at 
wbicb crucifixion would occasion deatb in a bealtby 
adult." In Smitb's Dictionary of tbe Bible we are 
likewise informed tbat deatb from crucifixion " some- 
times did not supervene even for tbree days, and 
was at last tbe result of gradual benumbing and 
starvation." 

1 Penny Cyclopaedia, article Cross. 

2 Biblical Cyclopsedia, article Crucifixion. 



136 WHAT WAS HE? 

]\Ir. James Jones thus describes a crucifixion that 
he witnessed at Araoy, China, in October, 1863 : — 

" The victim was a well-known thief, whose prin- 
cipal offence was that of stealing young girls, and 
selling them for prostitutes. 

" The cross was of the Latin form, the foot being 
inserted in a stout plank ; and the criminal, standing 
on the board, had nails driven through his feet, his 
hands stretched and nailed to the cross-beam. His 
legs were fastened to the cross with an iron chain, 
and his arms bound with cords ; and on the cord 
around his waist was inserted a piece of wood, on 
which was written his name and offence. A similar 
piece on his right arm contained his sentence, — viz., 
to remain on the cross day and night until he died : 
another on his left arm had the name of the judge, 
with his titles and offices. The criminal was nailed 
to the cross inside the yanum in the presence of the 
magistrate, and then carried by four coolies to one 
of the principal thoroughfares leading from the city, 
where he was left during the day, but removed at 
night inside the prison, for fear of his friends at- 
tempting to rescue him ; and again carried forth at 
daylight in charge of two soldiers." He was cruci- 
fied at noon on Wednesday, and Mr. Jones conversed 
with him at five in the evening. " He complained of 
pain in the chest, and thirst. On Thursday he slept 
for some hours, when the cross was laid down within 
the jail-compound. No one was allowed to supply 
him with food or drink; and during the day there 
was quite a fair in front of the cross, people being 
attracted from a distance, and the sweetmeat-vend- 



JOSEPH BEGS THE BODY OF JESUS. 137 

ers driving a large trade. On Saturday he was 
still alive, when the Taotal was appealed to by a 
foreigner to put an end to the wretch's sufferings ; 
and he immediately gave orders that vinegar should 
be administered, which he expected would produce 
immediate death. But the result was otherwise ; and 
at sunset, when the cross was taken within the jail, 
two soldiers with stout bamboos broke both his legs, 
and then strangled him." This man was on the 
cross for more than three days, then ; though part of 
the time he was not suspended, and had to be stran- 
gled at last. Suppose he had been taken down after 
he had hung six hours : his recovery would doubtless 
have been speedy. 

A young, temperate man like Jesus, living in the 
open air, and constantly walking about, we may 
reasonably suppose to have been in good health: 
why, then, should he die in a few hours, when he 
might have been expected to survive for at least one 
or two days? Is it not probable that he merely 
passed into a state resembling death, a swoon or 
death-trance, from which he subsequently recovered ? 
If Jesus was, as I suppose, a sensitive and medium, 
and subject to trance, as I know many of them to be, 
he might very readily pass into that condition upon 
the cross, — a condition which at times very closely 
resembles death. 

When Joseph came to beg the body of Pilate, he 
"marvelled if he were already dead" (Mark xv. 44), 
and inquired of the centurion whether he had been 
long in that condition. When the centurion certi- 
fied that he was dead (and this was probably from 



138 WHAT WAS HE? 

the appearance that he presented as he hung on the 
cross), Pilate commanded the body to be delivered to 
him. Pity for a man who could not in their ejes be 
considered a great criminal may have made both Pilate 
and the centurion more careless about assuring them- 
selves of his actual death than they would otherwise 
have been. 

The death of the two thieves was hastened by 
breaking their legs ; but Jesus being, as they sup- 
posed, dead already, they did not break his legs. 

It may be said that the spear-wound that he re- 
ceived must have rendered his death certain ; for 
John's Gospel declares that one of the soldiers pierced 
his side with a spear, and that blood and water came 
out. The other evangelists know nothing of this 
spear-wound in the side ; nor does Jesus in them 
refer to this wound after his resurrection, as he does 
in the fourth Gospel. As Strauss says,^ "- If the side 
of Jesus had been pierced while he was alive, and the 
blood fluid, then blood alone would have flowed out ; 
but if he had been dead, and the blood coagulated, 
nothing could have flowed out. If the spear had 
pierced the pericardium while the blood was flow- 
ing, its fluid would have mixed with the blood, and 
been undistinguishable from it ; but, if the blood had 
coagulated, then the fluid that surrounds the heart 
would have flowed out alone." It is therefore im- 
possible that blood and water should have flowed 
from the spear-wound, or even what appeared like it, 
so as to be distinguishable to spectators. 

But why should the writer make such a statement 

1 Strauss's Life of Jesus. 



THE SPEAH-WOUND. 139 

if it was not true ? For the same reason that the 
first Gospel represents Jesus as riding into Jerusalem 
on an ass and its colt (Matt. xxi. 7) ; telling us that 
all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the prophet, saying, " Tell ye the daughter 
of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, 
and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an 
ass." Misunderstanding the Hebrew poet, who only 
meant one animal, — as if he had said, ''sitting upon 
an ass, even a colt the foal of an ass," — the writer 
makes Jesus perform the feat of riding upon two 
animals in order to fulfil the prophecy. Such the 
Messiah, in his opinion, was to do, and such he there- 
fore did. The author of the fourth Gospel, finding 
that another passage in Zechariah, supposed to refer 
to the Messiah, represents him as being pierced, has 
a soldier pierce Jesus with his spear, and then tells 
us that it was done '' that the scripture should be 
fulfilled." Some hesitation might be felt about mak- 
ing such a charge against the author of this Gospel, 
had he not been evidently guilty of it on other occa- 
sions. On one of those occasions he makes, indeed, 
a similar mistake to that in Matthew. To fulfil a 
supposed prophecy of the Messiah found in the twen- 
ty-second Psalm, "They part my garments among 
them, and cast lots upon my vesture," — garments 
and vesture evidently referring to the same article of 
clothing, — he represents them parting his garment, 
and casting lots for his coat, contrary to the state- 
ments of the other evangelists ; for he supposed gar- 
ments and vesture to be distinct, and makes his 
description to agree with his mistaken notion. 



140 WHAT WAS HE? 

The spear-wound was given to Jesus, according to 
the fourth Gospel, in consequence of Pilate's order, 
made at the request of the Jews, that the legs of the 
crucified men should be broken, and they taken 
away before the sabbath. But, according to Mat- 
thew (xxvii. 58), Joseph begged the body, and " then 
Pilate commanded the body to be delivered ; " and, 
according to Mark and Luke, Joseph took the body 
down from the cross. But if Pilate had previously 
commanded the soldiers to break the legs of the 
crucified, and take them away, as we are informed in 
John, Joseph could not have taken the body of Jesus 
-down from the cross ; for the soldiers, obeying the 
order of Pilate, must have taken it down themselves. 
According to Mark, when Joseph went in the even- 
ing to beg the body of Jesus, '*• Pilate marvelled if he 
were already dead ; " but how could he marvel if he 
had ordered the soldiers to break his legs in order to 
kill him? And, in John, Joseph is represented as 
going to Pilate to beg the body (John xix. 38) after 
the legs of the thieves were broken, and the side 
of Jesus pierced. It is evident, therefore, if the 
other evangelists give a true statement in reference 
to these particulars, that Pilate, before Joseph ap- 
plied for the body of Jesus, had not given any order 
to the soldiers to break the legs of the crucified, and 
take them away ; and consequently the spear-wound, 
which is represented as having been made in conse- 
quence of that order, never was made. In the time 
when the fourth Gospel was written, evidently after 
the others, there may have been doubt suggested as 
to the actual death of Jesus; and the story of the 



MOKAL LESSONS OF JESUS. 141 

spear-wound, of which he is the only narrator, may 
have been intended to set this at rest, as well as to 
fulfil the prophecy. When the writers of the Gos- 
pel accounts were fully persuaded that Jesus was the 
Messiah, they were equally persuaded that all the 
Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in him ; and, in 
the absence of any actual knowledge, they appear at 
times to have written what they regarded as prophe- 
cies as veritable history. It is of course impossible 
to say who did this. Every Gospel may include, and 
I believe does include, statements made by a number 
of persons unknown to the compilers of the Gospels, 
who had to judge of their accuracy as we have. 

The probability is, then, that Jesus did not die 
upon the cross ; that he passed into a state of death- 
trance, from which he subsequently recovered. 

THE MORAL LESSONS OF JESUS. 

It is said that '' the moral lessons which Jesus 
taught were the highest the world has ever heard, 
the most godlike that mankind has ever known." 
But acknowledged enthusiasts and fanatics give 
excellent moral lessons. Mohammed says, " Do good ; 
for God loveth those who do good." ^ " They will 
ask thee what they shall bestow in alms : answer. The 
good which ye bestow, let it be given to parents and 
kindred and orphans, and the poor and the stran- 
ger." 2 '<• Whoso committeth wickedness, committeth 
it against his own soul." ^ " Give unto him who is of 
km to thee his reasonable due, and also to the poor 

1 Anioran, chap. ii. p. 23. 2 pbid., chap. ii. p. 25. 

3 Ibid., chap. iv. p. 74. • 



142 WHAT WAS HE? 

and the stranger." ^ " He who doth right doth it to 
the advantage of his own soul, and he who doth 
evil doth it against the same." ^ 

" Woe to every slanderer and backbiter who heap- 
eth up riches, and prepareth the same for the time to 
come ! " ^ " Woe to the hypocrites ! they pray negli- 
gently, and only from ostentation: they refuse to 
stretch out a succoring hand to their fellow-crea- 
tures." ^ " Whoso worketh righteousness, whether 
he be male or female, and is a true believer, we will 
surely raise him to a happy life ; and we will give 
them their reward, according to the utmost merit of 
their actions." ^ 

'' Draw not near unto fornication ; for it is wicked- 
ness and an evil way." " Give full measure when 
you measure aught, and weigh with a just balance." 
''Walk not proudly in the land ; for thou canst not 
cleave the earth, neither shalt thou equal the moun- 
tains in stature." ® 

When the moral lessons of Jesus are referred to, 
those given in the Sermon on the Mount are gener- 
ally meant. Many of them are excellent, and the 
spirit that pervades the whole is far in advance of 
his age. But how much depends upon the meanings 
that persons attach to the words ! If we treat the 
Sermon on the Mount as we would treat the words 
of some unknown writer, we find much that will not 
bear criticism. 

" Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." What is it to be poor in 

1 Alkoran, chap. x. 2 Chap. xli. 3 Chap. civ. 

^ Chap. cvii. ^ Chap. xvi. ^ Chap. xvii. 



MORAL LESSONS OF JESUS. 143 

money ? It is to have but little money. To be poor 
in land is to possess but little land. What can it 
mean to be poor in spirit ? To have little spirit, we 
should naturally suppose. And are those blessed 
who have little spirit? Is the kingdom of heaven 
the inheritance of the mean-spirited ? '' Save me from 
such a kingdom, then ! " says every true soul. 

But we are told that the passage does not mean 
any such thing. How unfortunate it is, then, that 
Jesus did not say what he meant, or that hia report- 
ers did not write what he said ! I am inclined to 
think that Luke, who reports the same discourse, 
comes nearer to the original statement. Before 
Jesus stands the motley crowd, — his poor friends ; 
swarthy fishermen from the Galilean lake ; idlers 
from the neighboring villages ; some of his relatives 
from Nazareth, who have heard of his strange con- 
duct and words ; beggars, who ply theii* vocation 
among the crowd ; and the sick, — poor wretches, un- 
able to employ a physician, who have heard of the 
cures performed by the prophet of Nazareth. Jesus 
exclaims, " Blessed are ye poor ; for youi^s is the king- 
dom of God." The writer of the passage in Matthew 
spiritualizes it, as so many commentators do such pas- 
sages to this day, and writes, " Blessed are the poor in 
spirit.''' In this form the passage has no meaning : in 
the other form it is easy to see what Jesus meant. 
The kingdom of God is the poor's ; because the poor 
are the ones who accept Jesus as the Messiah, and 
he will admit them into the kingdom of his Father. 
If the passage in Matthew had read, " Blessed are the 
rich in spirit," or the liberal-minded, it would have 
been a much more excellent beatitude. 



144 WHAT AYAS HE ? 

The next passage is, '' Blessed are they that mourn; 
for they shall be comforted." But^ what is there 
beautiful in this? Those who mourn not need no 
comforting. To mourn in order to have the blessing 
of comfort would be like suffering pain for the sake 
of the relief when the pain was gone. We should 
not think this saying a very wise one, '' Blessed are 
they that suffer ; for they shall be relieved : " and yet 
the one is as sensible as the other. But Jesus prob- 
ably meant this for the believers in him who were 
mourning, and whom he intended to comfort when 
he came in the clouds of heaven. 

The next beatitude is, " Blessed are the meek ; for 
they shall inherit the earth." Meekness is at times 
a great virtue ; though it may degenerate into a vice, 
and encourage tyranny that should be overthrown. 
But where is the connection between the virtue and 
the reward here promised ? Warlike peoples — such, 
for instance, as the ancient Romans and the modern 
English — have been the greatest landholders on the 
planet, while the meek toilers of all countries are 
generally destitute of a foot of ground that thej^ can 
call their own. 

Then follows, " Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall be 
filled." The meaning appears to be, " Blessed are 
those who long to do right ; for they shall be filled." 
But they must do more than hunger and thirst for 
it, they must live the life of righteousness, if they 
would be truly blessed. '' They shall be filled." 
Filled with what? Persons may be filled with the 
desire to be righteous ; but this they must be when 



SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 145 

they hunger and thirst after it: they cannot be 
filled with righteousness, since that is the condition 
of doing right. As the passage reads, it is not good 
sense ; and I think Luke again gives the original 
statement of Jesus, who looked upon the poor, hun- 
gry crowd before him, and, sympathizing with them, 
said for their consolation, " Blessed are ye that hun- 
ger now; for ye shall be filled," — referring again, 
probably, to the time of which he speaks at the last 
supper, when he and his friends will feast in the 
kingdom of God. The writer in Matthew, not 
appreciating this bread-and-butter beatitude, adds, 
'' after righteousness," and gives us, in consequence, 
a statement destitute of meaning, as he had done 
previously. 

" Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obtain 
mercy." That is good and beautiful. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see 
God." Purity of heart is essential to puritj^ of life, 
and is always to be esteemed ; but what is the mean- 
ing of '^ they shall see God"? Jesus probably 
meant that those who were pure in heart should see 
God after death in a personal form, while those who 
were otherwise should be excluded from his presence. 
Is this correct? If God is an infinite and eternal 
spirit, how can he be seen ? What eye can ever take 
in the Infinite ? None but the eye of a God. If 
God is the totality of the universe, — and this appears 
to be the only rational and consistent definition of 
God, — then it is certain that we shall see God in the 
hereafter only as we see him here, by the great uni- 
verse that reveals him ; and this is a sight vouchsafed 



146 WHAT WAS HE? 

to all, in proportion to their intelligence and spiritual 
development. 

" Blessed are the peacemakers " is good ; but when 
Jesus adds, " for they shall be called the children of 
God," the passage is spoiled. The peacemakers are 
blessed even if they are called the children of the 
Devil, as they frequently are. 

" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and 
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against 
you falsely, for my sake." The last clause of the 
sentence spoils the passage again. Blessed is the man 
who is evil spoken of because he speaks the truth, 
and does the right ; that is well : but why is a man 
blessed who is reviled for the sake of the Nazarene ? 
If he had said ''for the truth's sake," it would 
have been much better. The self-esteem of Jesus 
crops out everywhere, and his obtrusive personality 
appears in and mars his choicest utterances. He is 
thinking again of his Messiahship, and the rewards 
that he will bestow on his friends who had suffered 
for him. The Koran abounds with passages spoiled by 
Mohammed in a similar manner. In this respect, 
these religious enthusiasts are far below many of the 
philosophers of Greece, Rome, China, and India, men 
who loved truth for its own sake, and recommended 
righteousness because it is conducive to human wel- 
fare. 

" Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteous- 
ness' sake ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." We 
may say that this came from the life experience of 
Jesus, and that many enjoy the blessedness of which 
he speaks who do not accept of the Nazarene as their 



SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 147 

Master; but the kingdom of heaven is so generally 
connected in the mind of Jesus with the Messianic 
idea, that the probability is that it meant that he 
would give to those who were persecuted for his sake 
a seat in his heavenly kingdom. 

" If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there re- 
memberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, 
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; 
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and 
offer thy gift." The spirit of this is excellent, — du- 
ties to man before sacrifices to God. Better still 
would have been, '' be reconciled to thy brother, then 
thou need not offer thy gift." The only sacrifice ac- 
ceptable to God is that which is beneficial to man. 

" Whosoever is angry with his brother without a 
cause shall be in danger of the judgment ; and who- 
soever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in dan- 
ger of the council: but whosoever shall say. Thou 
fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire." This is the 
superstitious trifling of a man who regards the out- 
ward expression rather than the inward motive. No 
man is angry with any one " without a cause ; " but, 
as this clause is wanting in some of the oldest manu- 
scripts, it was probably inserted by some one who 
thought it was right to be angry if there was a suffi- 
cient cause. The man who allows anger to become 
his master is always in danger of doing what his 
judgment will condemn; and it matters little whether 
he calls a man " vile fellow," or '' fool." 

" Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the 
cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery ; 
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced com- 



148 WHAT WAS HE? 

mitteth adultery." This passage acknowledges the 
right of a man to put away his wife for a certain 
cause, but does not recognize the right of a woman 
to put away her husband for the same cause. There 
are many causes besides fornication that render mar- 
riage a bond of unutterable slavery to one or both par- 
ties, and productive of evil ; but if parties separate in 
consequence, and marry again, they are, according to 
this, guilty of adultery. Men's better judgment, even 
the judgment of Christians, has saved them from ac- 
cepting this declaration of Jesus. 

" Swear not at all." He tells us not to swear "by 
heaven, for it is God's throne." Suppose it had not 
been God's throne, would it have been right to swear? 
We are not to swear ''by the earth, for it is his foot- 
stool." What connection is there between the com- 
mand and the reason given for it ? We are not to 
swear '^hj Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great 
King." Suppose it had been the city of the small 
king, or a city without a king. We are not to swear 
by our heads, because we cannot ''make one haii:" 
white or black." But in these days w^e can make all 
the hairs black at least : is it therefore right for us 
to swear ? After saying, " Swear not at all," he should 
have given some proper reason for the command, and 
not descended to such trifling as greatly weakens 
the force of the original command. Suppose some 
one should write, " Steal not at all," and then add, 
" Thou shalt not steal apples, for thou canst not make 
one apple sour or sweet ; thou shalt not steal gold, for 
thou canst not make it one grain heavier or lighter : " 
who does not see that the force of the original com- 



SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 149 

mand would be weakened ? for the reason given has 
no connection with the command. Are such argu- 
ments any the less childish because they are found in 
the New Testament, and attributed to Jesus ? 

" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
do good to them that hate you." A man may bless 
those that curse him, and he may do good to those 
that hate him ; but to love a man that he knows to 
be his enemy is not in his power to will. The feel- 
ing that animated the man who spoke the words is 
commendable : it sprang from benevolence, but it was 
benevolence unregulated by enlightened judgment. 
Love and hate are not subject to the will. If a man 
by his conduct gratifies us, we cannot will ourselves 
to hate him ; and, if another by his conduct offends 
us, we cannot will to love him, though we may do 
him good. Bat the fault of the passage, if fault it 
has, is one that " leans to virtue's side." We may 
believe in that '' hearty hatred of scoundrels " which 
Carlyle recommends ; yet the highest philosophy and 
the soundest wisdom teach that men are what all 
the past has made them. Revenge is therefore entire- 
ly out of place, and blame equally so ; and he is the 
wisest man who kills his enemy by converting him 
into a friend. 

" Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, 
to be seen of them." That is good : ostentatious 
alms-giving is contemptible, for it is unmanly. But, 
when Jesus adds that God will reward those openly 
who give alms secretly, he is presenting a motive 
which facts do not authorize; and, when men fiiid 
that they are not rewarded openly for their secret 



150 WHAT WAS HE? 

benevolence, they may return to their former avari- 
cious practices. 

The conclusion of this famous sermon shows that 
egotism again which Jesus manifested throughout 
his career. " Whosoever heareth these sayings of 
7nine^ and doeth them,'' is like a wise man who built 
his house on the rock : he who hears his sayings, and 
does them not, is like a foolish man who builds on 
the sand. It is certain that no living man obeys the 
commands of Jesus as given in that sermon ; and, if 
any one should even try, it would be the best of 
evidence that he was indeed a foolish man. 

We may be told that these are mere spots on the 
sun. Granted ; but, as the spots on the sun show 
that it is subject to the same law as all other cooling 
bodies, so these spots in the character and teachings 
of Jesus show us that he was subject to the same 
laws that govern all mortals, and that we do right to 
regard him accordingly. As long as Jesus is re- 
garded as a miraculous being, we can no more under- 
stand him than the old cosmogonists, to whom every 
mountain was a standing miracle, could understand 
the history of the earth. 

There is sound philosophy in some of the teach- 
ings of Jesus ; beautiful sayings, true to nature, and 
true to manly nature ; exquisite parables, as those of 
the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and the lost 
sheep ; and the spirit of the man shining through the 
gospel histories is one that the unprejudiced cannot 
but be deeply interested in, if no higher, deeper feel- 
ing is called out. All, however, that Jesus was, his 
organization and his surroundings naturally made 



SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 151 

him ; and his lessons very naturally grew out of his 
life. As, for the organic forms that exist in any 
geologic formation, there are causes in the formation 
previous ; as the horses of the miocene were preceded 
by the hipparion of the eocene, and the mastodon 
by the dinotherium ; as the mammals of the eocene 
were preceded by the small marsupials of the lias 
and trias : so, in all history, behind events lie the 
causes that preceded and produced them. Back 
of the fruit lies the blossom, and back of that the 
bud, and back of that the leaves; and back of all 
these the plants, the soil, the rains, the suns, of 
unnumbered aeons. No race of savages ever pro- 
duced a Newton, a Humboldt, a Shakspeare, or a 
Goethe : they are the fruit of a tree of intellectual 
culture that took millenniums for its growth. So 
back of the lessons of Jesus lay the causes that 
produced them. Fortunately for us, Josephus, and 
Philo-Judaeus the Alexandrian philosopher, give us 
the key to many of the sayings as well as many of 
the deeds of Jesus. 

There were three principal religious sects among 
the Jews, — the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Es- 
senes in whom Judaism culminated. Of the Pharisees 
and Sadducees we have frequent mention in the Gos- 
pels, bat of the Essenes not a word. Had itiey been 
described, the similarity between their tenets and 
those of Jesus would have led to an inquiry which 
would have proved fatal to some of the Christian 
claims. 

Josephus informs us that many of them dwelt in 
every city ; but they had a colony, according to Philo, 



152 WHAT WAS HE? 

on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, and 
lived in scattered communities in various parts of 
Palestine. The Shakers of our own day must strong- 
ly resemble them. Some of their doctrines as given 
bj" Josephus and Philo bear a striking resemblance to 
those of Jesus. Jesus says, " Swear not at all. Let 
your communication be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for 
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." Of 
the Essenes Josephus says, ^' Swearing is avoided by 
them, and they esteem it worse than perjury ; for 
they say that he who cannot be believed without 
swearing by God is already condemned." 

Jesus appears never to have married, and his doc- 
trine is opposed to it rather than otherwise. His 
statement, that " whosoever looketh on a woman to 
lust after her hath committed adulterv with her 
already in his heart," savors strongly of Essenism. 
Again he says, " There be eunuchs which have made 
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. 
He that is able to receive it, let him receive it " 
(Matt, xix. 12). He does not absolutely deny the 
propriety of marriage, but by example and precept 
indicates the superiority of celibacy. This appears 
to have been the very position of the Essenes. Jose- 
phus says, '' They esteem continence, and the con- 
quest over our passions, to be virtue. They neglect 
wedlock. . . . They do not absolutely deny the fit- 
ness of marriage, and the succession of mankind there- 
by continued ; but they guard against the lascivious 
behavior of women." 

The teachings of Jesus respecting property are 
also identical with those of the Essenes. Jesus says, 



TEACHINGS OF THE ESSENES. 153 

" Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth ; " 
"Ye cannot serve God and mammon ;" " Woe unto 
you that are rich ! " " Sell that ye have, and give 
alms." His parable of the rich man and Lazarus 
shows what he supposed their fate would be. Jose- 
phus says of the Essenes, " A rich man enjoys no 
more of his own wealth than he who has nothing at 
all." " These men are despisers of riches, and so 
communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is 
there any one to be found among them who hath 
more than another ; for it is a law among them, that 
those who come to them must let what they have be 
common to the whole order." Another witness says, 
" They had no individual property ; ... and their 
communistic motto, which the Mishna (abotK) has 
preserved to us, ' Mine is thine, and thine is mine,' 
explains itself." 

Jesus sending out his disciples says, " Provide 
neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor 
scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither 
shoes, nor yet staves ; for the workman is worthy of 
his meat. And, into whatsoever city or town ye 
shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy ; and there 
abide till ye go thence " (Matt. x. 9-11). 

The practice that Jesus recommended was that in 
common use among the Essenes. Josephus says, " If 
any of their sect come from other places, what they 
have lies open before them just as if it were their 
own; and they go into such as they never knew 
before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted 
with them. For which reason, they carry nothing 
with them when they travel into remote parts ; . . . 



154 ' WHAT WAS HE? 

nor do they allow of the change of garments, or of 
shoes, till they be first entirely torn to pieces, or worn 
out by time." 

"A wonderful book of cures, which Talmudic, 
Arabic, and Byzantine authorities alike ascribe to 
Solomon, was in the hands of the Essenes ; and with 
this, by the aid of certain roots and stones, by the 
imposition of hands, and certain whisperings, . . . 
they cast out demons, and healed the sick." These 
are among the wonderful deeds that Jesus is said to 
have done, and which are styled miracles by the 
evangelists. 

Jesus forbids his followers to resist evil, and blesses 
the peacemakers ; and of the Essenes we find, " They 
are eminent for fidelity, and are the ministers of 
peace : ... he will do no harm to any one, either of 
his own accord, or by command of others." ^ 

From the great similarity between the doctrines of 
Jesus and those of the Essenes, it seems more than 
probable, that, previous to the advent of Jesus as a 
preacher and healer, he visited the Essene communi- 
ties then existing in Palestine, conversed with the 
members, and became imbued with many of the doc- 
trines that he afterward enunciated in his discourses. 
He was too self-reliant ever to have been a member. 

It must not be supposed, however, that Jesus 
accepted the doctrines of any party entire. He was 
too intelligent, self-reliant, and independent for that. 
The Essenes observed the sabbath more strictly than 
any other Jews. They would neither light a fire nor 
remove a vessel from its place on the sabbath day, 

1 Josephus, book ii. chap. 8. 



TEACHINGS OF THE ESSENES. 155 

and even restrained the necessities of the body. We 
see none of this superstitious bondage in Jesus, who 
measures the sabbath according to its benefits to 
man, and refuses -to allow either himself or his disci- 
ples to be enslaved by it. The food of the Essenes 
was pulse with bread and water. Jesus had no hesi- 
tation about eating and drinking what was set before 
him. In some respects, the Essenes were Pharisees 
of the Pharisees ; and in such respects Jesus differed 
more widely from them than he did from the Phari- 
sees. 



CHAPTER III. 

JESUS A CLAIRVOYANT. 

But when we prove that Mohammed was an enthu- 
siast, and even a fanatic, as we can readily do, we 
have by no means accounted for Mohammedanism 
and its persistent influence over thousands of mil- 
lions, among them men of gr^at virtue and culture. 
So when we have shown that Jesus was an enthu- 
siast, and at times passed over the line to fanaticism, 
we have by no means accounted for Christianity; 
nor have we done more than reveal one side, and 
that by no means the most important, in the life of 
its extraordinary founder. Had Jesus been merely 
an enthusiast, he would have passed, as a million 
others have done, like a flashing meteor. A few 
Judean admirers would have gazed with wonder ; 
but he would have left no abiding impression on 
mankind. 

One secret of the superior success of Jesus is, I 
think, to be attributed to the possession of clairvoy- 
ant power. That he was clairvoyant, those who ac- 
cept the Gospels cannot doubt, and those who reject 
the Gospels as authority ma}^ readily grant, especially 
if they are familiar with the clairvoyant phenomena 
of our own day. 

156 



JESUS A CLAIRVOYANT. 157 

In John we are informed, that, when Jesns saw 
Nathanael coming, he said, " Behold an Israelite 
indeed, in whom is no guile ! " Nathanael is aston- 
ished, for it is evident that he had never seen the 
man before ; and he says, '' Whence knowest thou 
me ? '' Jesus replies, " Before that Philip called 
thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." 
This so satisfies Nathanael, that he exclaims, '^ Rabbi, 
thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of 
Israel." Such an exhibition of clairvoyance to-day 
would be far from producing such an effect. But 
with the peculiar ideas of the Jews, in an age when 
very little was known about this spiritual power, and 
a belief in the miraculous was almost universal, it 
was very likely to lead to a claim of Messia^liship on 
the one side, and a readiness to grant the claim on 
the other. Indeed, I know of persons to-day, who, 
on the strength of the possession of somewhat simi- 
lar powers, make similar claims. 

We find another exhibition of clairvoyance in con- 
nection with the last visit of Jesus to Jerusalem. As 
he and the disciples came near the Mount of Olives, 
on their way to the city, Jesus said to two of them, 
" Go into the village over against you, and straight- 
way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her : 
loose them, and bring them unto me." The disciples 
went, and found them as Jesus had declared. 

When the Samaritan woman at the well said, 
"I have no husband," Jesus replies, "Thou hast 
well said, I have no husband ; for thou hast had 
five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not 
thy husband." Her own statement regarding Je- 



158 WHAT WAS HE? 

sus, made to her countrymen, was, " a man who told 
me all things that ever I did." 

On another occasion, referred to by all the sy- 
noptists, Jairus, the ruler of a synagogue, came to 
ask Jesus to cure his daughter; but, while he was 
talking, a messenger came to inform him that his 
daughter was dead. Jesus, however, went to the 
house, where he found the mourners weeping and 
wailing over the supposed dead body : but he went 
in, and said, " The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth ; " 
at which they laughed him to scorn. He proved to 
be right, however ; for, on telling her to rise, the girl 
rose up at once, and walked. 

On one occasion we are informed (Matt. ix. 2-4) 
that Jesus said to a man sick of the palsy, '' Son, be 
of good cheer : thy sins be forgiven thee." Some of 
the scribes who heard him said within thew^selves^ 
"This man blasphemeth ; " when Jesus, ''knowing 
their thoughts," replied to them as if thej^ had been 
words. On another occasion, referred to in Matt, 
xii. 25, we are told that he knew the thoughts of 
the Pharisees. When the disciples reason among 
themselves (Matt. xvi. 7), Jesus perceives it, and re- 
plies to them. Such an exercise of power would 
seem to them miraculous, as it also doubtless did to 
him. This accounts for his knowledge of the be- 
trayal upon which Judas had agreed, and the agony 
as he anticipated the result. In John ii. 24, 25, we 
read that Jesus '' knew all men, and needed not that 
any should testify of man ; for he knew what was in 
man." The possession of this faculty by Jesus was 
so well known, that, when he was before the high 



JESUS A CLAIRVOYANT. 159 

priest, the men that held him blindfolded him, and 
then said, " Prophesy, who is it that smote thee ? '' 
(Luke xxii. 63, 64.) They evidently made a mockery 
of his power in this respect. 

Supposing some of these accounts to be fabricated, 
which is not unlikely, still there must have been 
an exercise of such power on the part of Jesus that 
led to. the fabrication of them. The possession of 
such a faculty would naturally lead Jesus to sup- 
pose that he was specially endowed by God, and 
strengthen the belief that he was the long-looked- 
for Messiah and the Redeemer of his race. 



CHAPTER IV. 

JESUS A NATURAL HEALER. 

Beside this clairvoyant power, it appears evident 
that Jesus had great ability to heal diseases, such as 
we know to be possessed by various individuals now 
living. I see no difficulty in accepting the Gospel 
accounts of many of his marvellous deeds of this 
character ; for deeds quite as remarkable as most, and 
more remarkable than some, attributed to him, are 
taking place constantly. The evangelists declare 
that Jesus cured all manner of diseases, just as we 
read that Valentine Greatrakes, an Irish gentleman 
of the seventeenth century, became famous " for the 
cure of all kinds of diseases merely by the touch: " ^ 
but, when the evangelists particularize the diseases 
that Jesus cured, we find them to be generally 
possession of devils, lunacy, and palsy ; and such dis- 
eases are most readily cured by healers tQ-day. The 
Jews seem to have supposed that deranged persons 
who were violent, and epileptics, w^ere possessed 
of devils ; and, since such persons are frequently 
cured by powerful magnetizers with a word, it is 
not surprising that Jesus should have been able to 
accomplish this. Many diseases yield to the j)ower 

1 Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Biograpliy. 
160 



CURES BY DOCTOH NEWTON. 161 

of a strong will, and a firm, commanding voice ; and 
the man who has strong faith in himself is he who, 
all other things being equal, will be most successful. 
Jesus, in this respect, was pre-eminently qualified. 

The cures performed by Dr. J. R. Newton, and 
certified to by living persons, are a hundred times 
more numerous than those mentioned in the Gospels, 
and, had they been related there of Jesus, would 
have been regarded by most of his believers as strong 
evidences of his Messiahship. 

In the first three Gospels is an account of the cure 
of a man who was sick of the palsy. The man was 
taken to Jesus on a bed, apparently unable to stand. 
How long he had been so, we are not informed. 
Jesus said unto him, " Son, be of good cheer : thy 
sins be forgiven thee." This does not appear to 
have produced any effect. He then says, ''Arise, 
take up thy bed, and go unto thine house ; " when 
he arose, and went to his house. 

Here is the statement of Miss Kate O'Conner to a 
cure nearly if not quite as remarkable : — 

[From Miss Kate O'Conner.] 

I am nineteen years of age; live in Yardleyville, Bucks 
County, Penn. I have been afflicted with spine-disease, and 
total paralysis of the lower limbs. I had no more use of my 
lower extremities than an infant; was unable to walk for five 
years and a half ; was in the Philadelphia Hospital four years, 
and was carried about in a chair on wheels. Was treated by 
the most eminent phj^sicians : they burned the entire length of 
my back with a hot iron, without benefit. I heard of Dr. J. R. 
Newton ; and, on the 8th of November last, I was carried to his 
rooms in the arms of my brother, unable to bear the least 
weight on my feet. In ten minutes' treatment I was able to 



1G2 WHAT WAS HE? 

walk across the room ; and in twenty minutes I was able to 
walk down stairs, and out to the carriage, alone. I have been 
perfectly well ever since, enjoying better health than ever 
before. Kate O'Conner. 

Sworn and subscribed before me, this fifth day of March, 
1863. 

William P. Hibberd, Alderman^ Philadelphia. 

If this story had been related at third or fourth 
hand, it would probably have been more remarkable 
than the scriptural one. 

As remarkable as the cure of the withered hand, 
related also by the first three evangelists, is the fol- 
lowing, which is very much better authenticated : — 

This is to certify that I, R.. H. Havens, of Fair Haven, Conn., 
had my leg broke on the 1st of November, 1855. The knee 
was drawn up and calloused for six years. I tried all the 
eminent physicians I could find to see if my leg could be 
straightened and healed, but all to no effect : they pronounced 
me incurable. I used two crutches. I heard of Dr. J. R. 
Newton, and, as a last resort, had him treat me. He straight- 
ened my leg, and cured me ; and I left my crutches with him, 
having no further use for them. I can walk ten miles any day, 
and jump with any other living man. 

E. H. Havens, Fair Haven, Conn, 

New-Haven County, City of New Haven, 
Jan. 6, 1863. 

Personally appeared before me Mr. R. H. Havens, the signer 
of the foregoing, and made solemn oath that the same is true. 

Geo. H. Watrous, Justice of the Peace. 

A young lady who had been lame for six years, 
and compelled to use crutches for five years, went to 
Dr. Newton's rooms, was cured in ten minutes, left 



CURES BY DOCTOR NEWTON. 163 

her crutches with him, walked two miles without 
limping, and certified three months afterward that 
she had been well ever since. 

We have in the first three evangelists the cure by 
Jesus of a blind man on the road to Jerusalem, at 
Jericho : though, according to Matthew and Mark, it 
was done in going out of the city ; and according to 
Luke, in going into it ; while in Matthew there are 
two blind men, and in Mark and Luke only one. 
Other cures of the blind are related by the evangel- 
ists, culminating in John by the cure of a man 
blind from his birth ; but this is given by the least 
reliable of the evangelists alone. 

Dr. Newton has cured many who were blind; 
among them the daughter of Caroline Thomas, 
whose case is thus stated by her mother in a letter to 
the doctor : — 

Richmond, Ind., Nov. 23, 1868. 
Dear Friend Dr. Newton, — I write to make a statement 
in regard to the cure you made for my daughter in Bellefon- 
taine, O., three years ago the 2d of the coming December. 
She had been entirely blind for one year, and we had tried 
many skilful physicians to no effect. When I heard of your 
wonderful cures, I went ; and in three minutes' time, by your 
touch alone, my daughter was perfectly restored to sight, and 
remains so to this day. Caroline P. Thomas. 

In this case the mother certifies that she had been 
entirely blind for one j^ear, and yet was cured in 
three minutes. There could have been no fancy 
about this; for the mother declares that '^she was 
perfectly restored to sight," and had remained so when 
the, letter was written for three years. 



164 WHAT WAS HE? 

The following report of one of Dr. Newton's levees 
is from the San Francisco '^ Daily Evening Post " of 
Feb. 14, 1873 :i — 

" Our reporter had a seat in a corner, and watched with inter- 
est the continued throng of patients who passed in and out. 
During the time he was there, a count showed their number to 
have been eighty, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions 
of life, who were afflicted with pretty much all the ills that flesh 
is heir to. . . . 

" While we were in the doctor's rooms, one gentleman came 
in on crutches, limping along with great difficulty. The doctor 
said he could cure him, and put him through a course of passes 
and rubbings ; and in ten minutes the man had thrown away his 
crutches, and was dancing and gyrating in the most laughable 
manner. . . . 

" Another remarkable case was of a woman who seemed to 
have a film over her eyes, and who said she was blind. The doc- 
tor talked to her a while, made some passes, pressed his thumbs 
upon her eyelids, and told her she could see. She winked 
slowly, like a bat brought into the sunshine ; then declared she 
could see ; and, taking up a newspaper, she commenced to read 
it, — the first reading, according to her own declaration, that 
she had done for six years. Her joy was affecting. 

" A little child was brought in on a pillow. It seemed per- 
fectly helpless, unable to move any portion of its body except 
its eyes ; yet in half an hour it was sitting up, playing and 
laughing." 

If we could have had a report of the cures of Jesus 
from one of the scribes of his time, we can hardly 
suppose that it would have been any more remarka- 
ble. Dr. Newton, however, does not regard his cures 
as miraculous, but as the result of causes as natural 
in their operation as the fall of a rain-drop." 

1 Quoted by Dr. Crowell in Primitive Christianity and Modern 
Spiritualism. 



CURES BY DOCTOR NEWTON. 1G5 

That Jesus performed his cures in a similar manner 
to that in which modern healers perform theirs, is 
very clearly indicated by several statements in the 
Gospels. In Luke vi. 19 we are told that "the whole 
multitude sought to touch him ; for there went virtue 
out of him." The diseased in the land of Gennesaret 
'' besought him that they might only touch the hem 
of his garment ; and as many as touched were made 
perfectly whole" (Matt. xiv. 86). Influences for 
good or evil, health or disease, are passing from hu- 
man beings continually, and, in fact, from substances 
generallj', of which I have had abundant evidence in 
psychometric experiments. Some persons, indeed, re- 
semble walking batteries, who have the power to 
transmit healing influences to those who touch them, 
even when this is unknown to themselves. " The 
Post" reporter of San Francisco says of Dr. New- 
ton, ''That he is a man of remarkable magnetic 
power, there can be no doubt : his touch is electrical, 
like that of a shock from a battery." It has long 
been known to mesmeric operators that this heal- 
ing power which some persons possess may be com- 
municated to garments, and even transmitted to a 
distance. Mr. H. J. Atkinson, quoted by Prof. Greg- 
ory in his '' Letters on Animal Magnetism," says, '' I 
have found that one's own peculiar mesmeric power 
maybe in a measure conveyed to another." He tells 
of gloves which he charged Avith his influence, and 
sent to a lady at a distance, by which she was relieved 
of fearful pain resulting from tic-douloureux. 

When the sick woman touched Jesus, he perceived 
that " virtue had gone out of him ; " and this uncon- 



166 WHAT WAS HE? 

scious statement of Jesus, and record of the evangelist, 
is one of the best evidences of its truth, and the 
naturahiess of the power by which the cures of Jesus 
were effected. Contact with sick persons will sensi- 
bly effect sensitives who are unaware of their condi- 
tion, as those acquainted with mesmerism and psy- 
chometry very well know. 

Thomas Hartshorn says, " I have known a somnam- 
bulist, when in her natural state, to be afl3icted with 
a violent side-ache, in consequence of sitting down 
and taking the hand of a patient then being magnet- 
ized for that complaint. . . . The same thing has 
been observed by the celebrated physician Georget. 
He says, that, '' whenever he put his somnambulists 
in communication with a sick person, they immedi- 
ately experienced a pain, an uneasiness, and some- 
times a sharp affection, in the corresponding organs." ^ 

We have two cases of cures performed by Jesus at 
a distance. A Canaanitish woman has a daughter 
"grievously vexed with a devil: " she begs of Jesus 
to cure her; which he does, saying to the woman, 
" Be it unto thee even as thou wilt ; and her daughter 
was made whole from that very hour " (Matt. xv. 28). 
The distance at which this was done we cannot tell ; 
but the probability is that it was but short. The 
next is the cure of a son or servant of a centurion in 
Capernaum, said by Matthew to have had the palsy, 
and by Luke and John as ready to die. According 
to the synoptists, Jesus was near the house when the 
cure was performed ; but, according to John, he was 
at Cana, about fifteen miles off. But suppose that 

1 Instructions in Animal Magnetism, by Deleuze. 



CUKES BY DOCTOH NEWTON. 1G7 

we bad a letter that we could know was written by 
tbe centurion, certifying to tlie cure. Tlie following 
letter explains itself : — 

Raccoon Fokd, Culpepek County, Ya- 
Dr. J. R. Newtox. 

Dear Sir, — My daughter's case is certainly one of the most 
remarkable I have ever known or heard of since the days of the 
apostles of old, — a chronic affliction of three years' standing*. 
After explaining her case to Dr. Newton, I asked him if he 
could render her any service. He said, '-Yes, I can cure her, and 
will not put you to the trouble and expense of bringing her here. 
I will do it now." He used me as a medium of communication ; 
and in about two minutes he said to me, "Your daughter is well ; 
take out your watch, and make a note of the time." I did so : 
it w^as twelve m. of Wednesday, Gth of March, 1861. On that 
day, w^hile my daughter was at dinner, at home, in Orange 
County, Ya. (over five hundred miles distant), at between 
twelve and one o'clock she remarked to her mother, ''Ma, I 
feel so much better ! I feel that I am w^ell ! " And well she 
certainly is, — as hale and hearty as I have ever known her. 

Respectfully, Wm. P. Eliason. 

Why should not the testimony of living first-hand 
witnesses be taken, if the testimonj^ of we know not 
what hand witnesses is to be taken regarding events 
that transpired nearly two thousand j'ears ago ? If 
the testimony of living witnesses is to be received, 
many cures similar to the above have been effected 
within the last twenty-five years by persons who 
make no claim to be miraculous messengers from 
God. The powers wath which Jesus was endowed 
were such as are possessed by living persons, and are 
no evidence of his Messianic character. The probabil- 
ity is that all healthy persons possess healing power, 



168 - WHAT WAS HE? 

which is readilj^ imparted by touch. Some have this 
power to a much greater extent than others; but, in 
all, it maj^ be developed by judicious exercise ; while 
in some this sanative force is so great, that an indi- 
vidual can stand before fifty invalids, and in a few 
minutes send nearly all away rejoicing, apparently 
cured, as Zouave Jacob and Dr. Newton have fre- 
quently done. 



CHAPTER V. 

MIRACLES OF JESUS. 

"But Jesus multiplied food," we are told, "feeding 
five thousand on ^^ few loaves and fishes." That is 
a miracle indeed ; but where is the evidence that can 
establish it ? In the first two Gospels we have two 
accounts of miraculous feeding in each (Matt. xiv. 
13-21, and xv. 29, 32-39; Mark vi. 30-44, viii. 1-10), 
and in Luke and John we have one each (Luke ix. 
10-17, and John vi. 1-15). They all refer probably 
to the same occurrence, which, being found by the 
compilers of Matthew and Mark in various forms in 
the documents they consulted, were supposed by 
them to relate to distinct miracles. In all the cases, 
a multitude of people have gathered together in a 
desolate place. They are threatened by hunger. The 
disciples question whether food can be provided for 
them. Jesus inquires how much food they have : their 
only provision is a few loaves and fishes. Jesus com • 
mands the people to sit down ; blesses the food, which 
is distributed by the disciples : several thousand per- 
sons are filled, and several baskets of fragments are 
taken up. In Matthew and Mark, after each miracu- 
lous feeding, the disciples cross b}^ boat to the other 
side of the lake. 

169 



170 WHAT WAS HE? 

As related in the fourteentli of Matthew, five thou- 
sand men, besides women and children, are fed upon 
five loaves and two fishes. If there were five thousand 
men, we may reasonably conclude, that, with the wo- 
men and children, they would number about seven 
thousand. They all ate, and were filled; and twelve 
baskets full of fragments were taken up. We may sup* 
pose, therefore, that there must have been food enough 
produced to give at least a pound to each person; 
which amounts to three tons and a half for the v/hole. 
Jesus took the loaves and fishes; blessed and brake 
them; gave them to the disciples, and they to the 
multitude. Did the miraculous increase take place 
in the hands of Jesus, the disciples, or the multitude ? 
If in the hands of the multitude, the disciples must 
have distributed to each the merest crumb ; for, if 
they were four-pound loaves, it Avould be but the 
one-twentieth of an ounce for each one. This is in- 
conceivable. The increase must have taken place, 
then, either in the hands of Jesus, or those of the 
disciples. If we suppose the three tons and a half to 
consist of bread three tons, and fish half a ton, each 
loaf must have weighed twelve hundred pounds, and 
been equal to ten feet long, six feet thick, and five 
feet broad. Had the bread been thus magnified 
before their eyes before its distribution, we should 
have had some description of it ; for this would have 
been much more striking than any thing else. Such 
loaves Jesus could hardly have broken, and given to 
his disciples. We may imagine, that, as Jesus broke 
off a piece, the original loaf grew complete, so that 
another piece could be broken off, and the loaf in no 



MIRACULOUS FEEDING. 171 

wise diminish : but in that case the loaves could not 
be said to be broken, and handed to the disciples ; and 
the record seems to teach that the original loaves 
and fishes were broken, and handed to them, and that 
the increase took place between their hands and the 
hands of the hungry multitude. We can hardly 
suppose, however, that Peter started with about two 
pounds of bread and half a pound' of fish, and, 
before he reached the first party sitting upon the 
grass, that he found himself crushed down by a load 
of six hundred pounds of bread and a hundred and 
fifty pounds of fish. We should certainly have had 
some report of it, if this had been the nature of the 
miracle. When we attempt to realize it, the miracle 
breaks down under its own weight. 

It is impossible that any one present could have 
known that the only food among a crowd of seven 
thousand persons was five loaves and two fishes. It 
is extremely improbable that such a number of per- 
sons would have followed Jesus into a desert place 
and remained till evening, and still more improbable 
that they should have done this without making any 
provision for their sustenance. 

Jesus may in his benevolence have bought and dis- 
tributed such food as he could conveniently obtain — 
a few loaves and fishes — to a crowd of perhaps three 
or four hundred persons ; and others who had provis- 
ions with them, ashamed to be outdone, brought out 
their supplies, and handed them round, perhaps sent 
also to neighboring villages for food unknown to 
Jesus and his disciples, who, in their enthusiasm and 
belief in frequent miraculous interference, saw a 



172 WHAT WAS HE? 

miracle in a very simple natural occurrence, which 
was successively magnified into its present dimen- 
sions. 

But we are informed that Jesus raised the dead. 
In Luke we read that Jesus, approaching the city of 
Nain, saw a " dead man carried out, the only son of 
his mother, and she was a widow." He had compas- 
sion on her, told her not to weep, came and touched 
the bier, and said, "• Young man, I say unto thee, 
Arise ! And he that was dead sat up, and began to 
speak; and he delivered him to his mother." 

It seems very strange that the other Gospels tell 
us nothing of this wonderful occurrence, while three 
of them narrate such a trifle as the cure of a fever. 
It could not be for want of knowledge ; for we are in- 
formed that the rumor of this '' went forth through- 
out all Judaea, and throughout all the region round 
about." 

It is evident, if John's Gospel is to be credited, that 
the Jews in the neighborhood of Bethany had never 
heard of this wonderful occurrence ; for, when Laza- 
rus dies, they ask (xi. 37), ^' Could not he who opened 
the eyes of the blind have even prevented this 
man's death? " If they had known of the resurrec- 
tion of the widow's son, would they not have said, 
'' Could not he who raised the widow's son save his 
friend's life? " If the speech is put into the mouth 
of the Jews by the writer, then he had never heard 
of this wonderful occurrence, or, if he had, did not 
believe it. 

On the very day on which Jesus is represented as 
having raised this dead man in Nain, Matthew repre- 



SON OF THE WIDOW OF NAIN. 173 

sents Jesus (Matt, viii.) as being on the eastern side 
of the Sea of Galilee, in the country of the Gerge- 
senes, more than thirty miles from Nain, having 
passed over from Capernaum in a ship ; nor did he 
return to the western side of the sea, on which Xain 
was situated, till the day after. Which of these narra- 
tors shall we believe ? If Matthew tells the truth, 
Luke is either trjdng to impose upon us, or has been 
himself imposed upon ; and there can be no question 
about the comparative probability of the two. If I 
should read in George Fox's Journal that he raised a 
corpse to life in Cumberland on a certain day, and I 
found that William Penn gave an account of being 
with George Fox at a meeting in London on the 
same day, I should give no credence to the story of 
his raising the dead, nor would any other intelligent, 
unprejudiced person ; and why should we believe in 
the raising of the widow's son's corpse ? Jesus is 
represented as saying, '' Young man, I say unto thee. 
Arise ! " But his corpse was no more a young man 
than a marble statue made to represent him. When 
the spirit has departed, the body is no more the man 
than his clothes. A man might as well say to the 
statue of Webster in Boston, '' Webster, I say unto 
thee. Come down I " and the speech would be just as 
proper as the speech of Jesus ; and if the statue of 
Webster should come down, and walk, it would be no 
more of a miracle than the Nain miracle recorded by 
Luke. It is also stated that Jesus " delivered him 
to his mother." Had this been a real occurrence, 
should we have read in a description of it any such 
unnatural sentence as that ? It reveals the apocry- 



174 WHAT WAS HE? 

phal character of the story. Jesus approaches, and 
touches the Lier, or bed as it is in the original. It was 
set down, doubtless, when the bearers stood still. The 
]\Iaster of life speaks ; and the hue of health flushes 
the pale countenance, the eyes open, the lips move ; 
he speaks ! Would there be any chance for Jesus to 
" deliver him to his mother " ? That mother had been 
watching the stranger, heard the commanding voice 
that sent the blood with energy through her veins, 
saw the first sign of life, and with a scream of joy 
clasped her only son to her bosom, before Jesus 
could touch him. The man who manufactured the 
story had a poor idea of a mother's love, or he would 
never have related it in this unnatural manner. 

The reality of spiritual phenomena to-day has led 
to the belief of many wonderful things that never 
took place, though frequently stated on very good 
authority ; and the reality of many wonderful deeds 
performed by Jesus led, doubtless, in that less criti- 
cal age, to the manufacture and acceptance of still 
more marvellous deeds that he never did perform. 
To this class, probably, belong the turning of water 
into wine, as related in the fourth Gospel, and the 
money found in the mouth of the fish. The death 
of the cursed fig-tree is probably an exaggeration of 
a natural occurrence. That a calm followed after 
he rebuked the winds and the sea is probable enough ; 
but it Avould be difficult to show that the calm was 
produced by the rebuke. 

The resurrection of Lazarus, after lying in the 
tomb for four days, is a still more remarkable mir- 
acle. If it could be proved that Lazarus was really 



RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 175 

dead, and that Jesus raised liim to life, we sliould 
then be compelled to confess that Jesus did possess 
a power greater than that of any mortal now living, 
and that our estimate of him is much lower than the 
facts warrant. The first thing that strikes us in an 
investigation of this, the most remarkable miracle 
that Jesus is said to have performed, is that no other 
evangelist refers to it. Luke tells Theophilus, in the 
preface to his Gospel, that he had perfect under- 
standing of all things from the very first (Luke 
1.1-4), and that he writes to him that he might 
know" the certainty of those things in which he had 
been instructed. Could it be possible that the man 
who wTote this Gospel, and who says he had accu- 
rately traced — for this is what his language signifies 
— all things from the first, had not heard that Jesus 
raised Lazarus from the dead ? He records the cure 
of Peter's wife's mother, though she was only sick of 
a fever ; he is quite familiar with the case of the man 
sick of the palsy ; and has heard all about the centu- 
rion's servant, who was sick, and '' ready to die." It 
is not possible that Jesus could have raised Lazarus 
after he had been dead four days, and Luke, who had 
read the writings of many who had set forth in order 
a declaration of those things which were most surely 
believed among Christians (Luke i. 1), could have re- 
mained ignorant of this his crowning work, which above 
all others bore evidence to the divinity of his mission. 
If he had not heard of it, it must have been because 
it did not take place ; but if he heard of it, and did 
not give an account of it, it must have been because 
lie did not believe it : it was not one of those things 



176 WHAT WAS HE? 

in which Theophilus had been instructed. What is 
still more remarkable, Luke refers to a visit Avhich 
Jesus paid to Martha and Mary, the sisters of Laza- 
rus, and designates the place as " a certain village," 
and Martha as " a certain woman." Would he not 
have known the name Bethany if any such event had 
occurred there, and said, the sister of Lazarus whom 
Jesus raised from the dead, if he had believed any 
such thing ? It is not Luke alone, however, who is 
silent regarding this astounding miracle ; but we find 
no mention of it in Matthew and Mark, though 
Bethany is referred to, and an anointing that took 
place there, though the name of Mary the sister of 
Lazarus, who was the woman, according to John, that 
did the anointing, is unknown to both writers, as is 
the name and story of their resurrected brother 
Lazarus. According to John xi. 53, it was from the 
time of this miracle that the Jews plotted the death 
of Jesus. This miracle would have been better 
known and more talked about than any other, had it 
been performed. A story similar to this of Lazarus 
promulgated to-day, and resting upon no better evi- 
dence, would not be considered worthy of serious 
refutation. Jesus was doubtless a natural healer, as 
many persons now are, and probably cured hundreds 
of persons of whom the Gospels give us no informa- 
tion : and this must have also strengthened his belief 
in his Messiahship, and convinced multitudes of the 
justice of his claim ; for was not the Messiah to 
open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the 
deaf, make the lame to leap, and the tongue of the 
•dumb to sing ? When the Baptist sends to inquire 



THE MESSIAH. 177 

of Jesus whether he is the one that should come, or 
in other words the Messiah, the answer of Jesus is, — 
and it shows his estimate of his healing power, — " Go 
and show John again those things which ye do hear 
and see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the 
dead are raised up,'' &c. As much as to say, "You 
may know that I am the Messiah, when you see that 
I am ahje to perform these things, which it was 
prophesied the Messiah should do.'' It is not sur- 
prising that the people, finding Jesus do what seemed 
almost as miraculous as raising the dead, should 
have regarded him as their long-looked-for Messiah, 
and credited him with doing that also. Some of the 
Mormon elders practised healing by the laying-on of 
hands, and were in many cases very successful ; and 
I have heard Mormons declare that they had known 
the dead to be raised by their instrumentality. 



CHAPTER VI. 

JESUS A SPIBITUAL MEDIUM. 

It ls Dot uncommon to find persons to-day who are 
clairvoyants, possess healing power, and are mediums 
through whom the departed can manifest. 

There are many indications in the Gospels that 
Jesus was a person through whom spirits could 
operate, so as to reveal their presence to him, and at 
times to those who were in company with him. 
When he was baptized by John in Jordan, we are 
informed that the heavens were opened unto him, 
and a voice was heard, " This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased." It is not improbable that 
the clairvoyant vision of Jesus enabled him to see 
through the veil that ordinarily conceals the spirit- 
land from mortals, whilst by him as a medium his 
actual father could utter the words that were heard, 
supposed by Jesus to be the words of God. 

That spirits can so far materialize themselves un- 
der favorable circumstances as to make vocal sounds 
is a fact well known to many. Dr. Crowell relates 
the following experience which he had at two 
seances with Dr. Slade. ''No one but the medium 
and* myself was present. The gas was turned down, 
and we sat at opposite sides of the table with our 

178 



JESUS A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM. 179 

hands upon it in contact. At each sitting, a spirit 
voice was soon heard addressing me, proceeding ap- 
parently from the air, first on *one side of me, then 
on the other, then again from behind, and some- 
times as if the spirit speaking was moving in circles 
around me. At one of these seances three different 
voices were heard, and at the other four, each giving 
the name of a spirit friend; and the conversation 
between us was in all respects as natural as ordinary- 
conversation, excepting that the voices were coarse 
and husky like loud whispers, or as if directed 
through a materialized trumpet. One spirit espe- 
cially, who purported to be my father, conversed in 
strong natural tones ; and our conversation must have 
continued for some fifteen or twenty minutes. The 
topics were entirely of a personal nature, and refer- 
ence was repeatedly made to matters and facts of 
which the medium could have had no knowledge : 
besides, not one of these sounds came from his locali- 
ty ; but in his natural voice he would often comment 
upon the remarks of the spirits, generally speaking 
at the same moments they did, so that I was repeat- 
edly compelled to request him to refrain from conver- 
sation while they Avere speaking, as it prevented me 
from understanding them." ^ From my own experi- 
ments with Slade, I have no doubt of the accuracy 
of Dr. CrowelFs statements. Since spirits thus com- 
municate with living persons by voice, they do it by 
virtue of natural law, and, by the same law, may have 
communicated in the time of Jesus. 

After the baptism, Jesus was "led up of the spirit 

1 Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism. 



180 WHAT WAS HE? 

into the wilderness" (Matt. iv. 1). Mediums are at 
times thrown into an unconscious state, as mesmeric 
subjects frequently are by operators ; and while in 
that state they have been led to localities, obedient 
not to their own will, but the will of the controlling 
intelligence. Jesus may have been " led " in a simi- 
lar manner, some of his friends recognizing by his 
language his peculiar condition. 

At the conclusion of his temptation, we are told 
that " angels ministered unto him." They minister 
to millions now, but few of whom are able to recog- 
nize their presence. With the interest that unnum- 
bered hosts of departed Jewish spirits must have had 
in the welfare of their down-trodden nation, it is not 
at all surprising that they should have ministered to 
one who might be its deliverer ; nor, with the spirit- 
ual development which Jesus seems to have pos- 
sessed, is it remarkable that he should have been 
able to sense their presence, though he may have 
been far from appreciating what he saw and heard, 
as is the case with many mediums to-day. 

One evening the disciples started from the eastern 
shore of the Lake of Gennesaret to sail across to 
Bethsaida, Jesus in the mean time having gone on to 
a mountain. The wind was contrary, and they made 
but slow progress in rowing ; so that, between three 
and six in the morning, they were not four miles from 
shore. Suddenly Jesus approached the vessel, walk- 
ing on the sea ; but in the storm and darkness they 
did not know him, and cried out in fear, for they 
thought it was a spirit : but Jesus called to them, 
" It is I; be not afraid; " and with joy they received 



LEYITATION. 181 

him into the vessel. Most disbelievers in the super- 
natural would say, " No such event took place : it is 
one of those miraculous stories, that, however its 
appearance may be accounted for, we can only 
reject." But reject all the accounts that we have of 
levitation, and we reject the testimonj^ of some of the 
most truthful as well as the most intelligent of man- 
kind. By so doing, we place ourselves in the posi- 
tion of the wise savans who laughed at all the stories 
of stones falling from the skies, and pitied the cre- 
dulity of mankind, till, lo ! it was discovered that 
aerolites really did fall, that the earth was pelted by 
them continually, that the common people who had 
believed their eyes were right after all, and the 
sneering savans, who had decided in their ignorance 
how far the universe extended, were the only parties 
that needed to be pitied. 

Levitation is a well-known fact to those conver- 
sant with spiritual phenomena, and they can readily 
believe in its exercise in past time. I have frequent- 
ly held one end of a double-leafed dining-table, and 
had an unseen power lift the other so as to elevate 
the table completely from the floor. I have seen the 
same table turned completely round, without a 
human being touching it. 

" Anna Fleischer, the wife of a resident of Frey- 
burg, who was subject to epileptic fits, attended with 
violent convulsions and hallucinations, is stated by 
superintendent Miiller to have often risen in the air, 
and once, in the presence of Deans Dachsel and 
Walburger and others, was raised two and a half 
yards from her bed in a horizontal position, and thus 



182 WHAT WAS HE? 

floated freely in the air. Those present cried to 
God, caught hold of her, and brought her back ; for 
it appeared to them as if she would go out of the 
window." ^ 

" We have in history," says Calmet, " several in- 
stances of persons, full of religion and piety, who in 
the fervor of their orisons have been taken . up into 
the air, and remained there for some time. I have 
known a good monk who rises sometimes from the 
ground, and remains suspended, without wishing it, 
especially on seeing some devotional image or hear- 
ing some devout prayer." ^ 

Alfred Russel Wallace says, ^' Lord Orrery and 
Mr. Valentine Greatrakes both informed Dr. Henry 
More and Mr. Glanvil, that at Lord Conway's house, 
at Ragiej^ in Ireland, a gentleman's butler, in their 
presence and in broad daylight, rose into the air, and 
floated about the room above their heads. ... So we 
all know that at least fifty persons of high character 
may be found in London, who will testify that they 
have seen the same thing happen to Mr. Home."^ 

Lord Adare, in a work recently published hj him ^ 
and quoted by Dr. Crowell, says, speaking of Home, 
" I took both his feet in my hands, and away he went 
up into the air, so high that I was obliged to let go 
his feet. He was carried along the Avail, brushing 
past the pictures, to the opposite side of the room. 
He then called me over to him. I took his hand, and 
felt him alight upon the floor. At Adare Manor, 

1 Animal Magnetism, Dr. Lee, p. 325. 2 ibid., p. 325. 

3 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, by Dr. Crowell, p. 8. 

4 Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home. 



THE TKANSFIGURATION. 183 

Ireland, all present saw him raised off the ground in 
the open air, and floating past them at a height 
which carried him clear over a wall, by a movement 
quite horizontal and uniform, a distance of ten or 
twelve j^ards." 

]\Ir. William Crookes, editor of " The London 
Quarterly Journal of Science," says, "The most strik- 
ing cases of levitation which I have witnessed have 
been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions 
have I seen him raised completely from the floor of 
the room, — once sitting in an easy chair, once kneel- 
ing on his chair, and once standing up. On each 
occasion I had full opportunity of watching the oc- 
currence as it was taking place." ^ 

Such evidence does not, of course, prove that Jesus 
walked on the sea ; but it takes such an event out of 
the realm of the supernatural. 

The individuals subject to levitation, though fre- 
quently persons in whom the religious sentiments 
are active, are not necessarily so. Some I am per- 
sonally acquainted with, who in this respect are not 
at all superior to the average of those around them. 

One evening Jesus took his three favorite disci- 
ples, Peter, John and James, and went on to a moun- 
tain to pray. The disciples laj^ down, and went to 
sleep ; and, when they awoke, they saw, to their great 
astonishment, that the face of their Master was shin- 
ing, and his countenance altered, while his garments 
were white and glistering. They also saw two men 
standing and talking with him, and heard a voice 

1 Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism, vol. ii. p. 436. 



184 WHAT WAS HE? 

come out of a cloud that overshadowed them: ''This 
is my beloved Son : hear him." 

A transformation of the countenance of the me- 
dium into the likeness of the spirit controlling is 
not a very uncommon phenomenon of mediumship. 
I have frequently seen the faces of mediums assume 
an Indian expression Avhen they were professedly 
under the control of Indian spirits. The statement 
in Luke, that the countenance of Jesus was altered, 
agrees very well with what might have taken place 
in consequence of his control by a spirit ; while the 
attendant illumination is explained by luminous ap- 
pearances, which though by no means as common as 
spirit control, and transfiguration of the countenance, 
have been seen by many trustworthy observers. 
From a paper giving an account of phenomena ob- 
served at Mr. Home's circles, signed by John D. Lord, 
Rufus Elmer, and nine others, I find the following : 
" Lights are produced in dark rooms. Sometimes 
there appears a gradual illumination, sufiQcient to 
disclose very minute objects ; and at others a tremu- 
lous phosphorescent light gleams over the walls, and 
odic emanations proceed from human bodies, or shoot, 
meteor-like, through the apartment." Lord Adare 
says of Home, " At No. 7, Buckingham Gate, he was 
in the air ; and his head became quite luminous at 
the top, giving him the appearance of having a halo 
around it. When he was raised, he waved his arms 
about; and in each hand there came a little globe of 
fire." ' 

The two who were seen conversing with Jesus 

1 Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism, vol. ii. p. 27. 



DEPAKTED SPIHITS. 185 

were probabl}^ materialized forms of spirits, such as 
have been seen by thousands of persons within the 
last thirty years ; while the voice that was heard 
may have been the voice of the father of Jesus, desir- 
ous of assisting his well-beloved son. However wild 
such explanations may be deemed now, as spirit 
manifestations increase in frequency and power their 
reasonableness will become more and more apparent. 

When we read that Jesus was '' full of the Holy 
Ghost," that he '' returned in the power of the Spirit 
into Galilee," they seem to be indications of a condi- 
tion resulting from his mediumship, and given in this 
form in consequence of the prevalent belief of the 
times. 

Departed spirits take more interest in human 
affairs, and exercise a greater influence over human 
destiny, than the philosophers have ever recognized, 
or the historians been willing to grant. The '' God 
of Israel," " the Angel of the Lord," and " Gabriel," 
who appear so frequently in the pages of the Old 
Testament, were, in all probability, spirits of the de- 
parted, who communicated with mortals as well as 
circumstances would allbw; and they, having no 
conception of the natural character of the communi- 
cation, supposed them to be apparitions of the uni- 
versal Spirit, or its direct messenger. 

Mohammed says that he saw an angel in human 
form, Avho commissioned him to be the prophet of 
his people. Joan of Arc heard ''the voice of an 
angel," and eventually saw the form, which she de- 
scribes very naturally, and contrary to the common 
opinion about angels, as being that " of a true and 



186 WHAT WAS HE? 

comely gentleman." The appearances and words of 
that " comely gentleman " materially changed the 
history of France and England. Abraham, Moses, 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jesus, Swedenborg, 
Joanna Southcott, Ann Lee, Joseph Smith, and 
almost every religious enthusiast, appear to have 
been mediums for spiritual manifestations, which 
either produced or modified their peculiar condition; 
and such persons as those have probably done more 
to shape the religious views of the world than all 
others. 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 

The character of Jesus assisted him materially 
in gaining the confidence of his disciples and fol- 
lowers, and calling out that love in them which 
proved itself to be stronger than death, and led them 
to preach, with the utmost fervor, Jesus and him 
crucified. His life, as given in the Gospels, is neces- 
sarily one-sided. Written originally for the purpose 
of convincing men that he was the Messiah, his biog- 
raphers related those sayings and deeds of his that 
would be most likely to produce that impression on 
the minds of the readers. They paint for us the 
sky, but not the clouds ; or, if there are clouds, they 
hardly, supposed them to be such : they give us 
the wise sayings of Jesus, but none of his jokes ; 
sometimes the flashes of his indignation, but hardly 
any thing that can be called flashes of wit; they 
tell us tha,t he wept, but they never tell us that he 
laughed. Yet there can be little doubt, that, with all 
this one-sidedness, we can obtain true glimpses of the 
man. Jesus was conscientious, — one who spoke what 
appeared to him to be true, regardless of all conse- 
quences ; and this is one of the greatest virtues. 
The most hopeless of all men is the hypocrite : there 

187 



188 WHAT WAS HE? 

is more hope of a drunkard and a rowdy than of the 
most respectable pretender. Honesty is to the man 
what the back-bone is to the body : when that is left 
out of his composition, he is a jelly-fish prone on the 
sand, an object of pity to all who see his true condition. 

From what is recorded of Jesus, we cannot imagine 
any honeyed words of flattery falling from his lips. 
Not a word to conciliate the rich, the men in office, 
the scribes, the Pharisees, the lawyers. These were 
the popular men, and the ones whose influence could 
have made him popular; but he denounces them 
without stint. He made extravagant promises to his 
humble followers, because he had the firmest belief 
that he could fulfil them ; and, if he had been what 
he supposed he was, he certainly would. He shocks 
his own family, causes his friends to turn their backs 
upon him in consequence of his out-spokenness, and 
rebukes his disciples in the plainest manner when he 
thinks them wrong. 

" Blessed are ye poor." What help could he 
expect from them ? " Blessed are the meek." The 
last words that would have fallen from a dishonest 
man's lips. " Blessed are the merciful, the peace- 
makers, the reviled, and the persecuted." " Lay not 
up for yourselves treasures on earth." " Woe unto 
you that are rich ! " " Woe to you that are full ! " 
" Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers ! " It is 
just as if a man should travel round, preach in the 
open air through the United States, and say, " Woe 
unto you bankers ; blessed are ye tramps ; woe 
unto you reverends, senators, and representatives ! 
Put no money in banks or stocks. Blessed are the 



CHAKACTER OF JESUS. 189 

laborers, and cursed are the men who live without 
labor on the produce of other people's labors." I 
can fancj^ some of the friends of Jesus coming to him, 
after a sermon embodj'ing some of the sayings col- 
lected by the evangelist, and placed together in the 
mountain sermon : " You have destroyed j^our in- 
fluence forever : what good you might do if j'Ou were 
less extravagant ! You can never be popular while 
you preach after that fashion : you drive all the 
influential people away by such sermons as those." 
It is evident that Jesus cared more to preach what 
welled from his soul to his lips than to have the. 
good opinion of every shekel-gatherer in Judaea. 

When the rich young man desires to know what 
he shall do to inherit eternal life, he tells him to sell 
all that he has, and give to the poor, and come and 
follow him. What minister would tell a rich young 
man to sell all that he had, and give the proceeds to 
the poor, and then join his church ? The reason of 
the difference is, that the ministers of to-day court 
popularity; while Jesus sought to deal honestly 
with men, and let popularity take care of itself. 
When persons professed a desire to unite with him, 
he advised them to count the cost, told them of dan- 
gers and persecutions that awaited them, and gave 
them to understand that they must be willing to 
risk even their lives in his cause. This honesty of 
Jesus has won for him the approbation even of the 
dishonest, while it has assisted materially in recom- 
mending his doctrines to honest and truthful minds. 

Any thing like sham or mere pretjsnce he unspar- 
ingly denounces. A man with large benevolence 



190 ' WHAT WAS HE? 

despises the stingy, the muck-rakers ; a true artist 
cannot bear a daub, nor can he feel at home among 
daubers ; mistakes in music are excruciating to the 
musician whose soul is tuned to harmony : so Jesus, 
honest to the core, could not bear hypocrites who 
made long prayers, but swindled widows out of their 
houses, — who compassed sea and land to make a 
proselj^te, only to make him worse than themselves. 
They are the children of hell, and he can see no way 
in wdiich they can escape its damnation. He tells his 
followers to beware of the wolves in sheep's skin, 
"whose gospel is their maw." The species is by 
no means extinct. The man with a beam in his e3^e 
is, he ' thinks, a poor eye-doctor. Jesus sees in an 
honest Roman and a benevolent Samaritan true sons 
of Abraham, to whom is reserved chief seats in the 
heavenly kingdom ; while the hj^pocritical pretenders, 
though they sat in Moses' seat, and were religious 
with their lips, can only behold their dazzling glory 
afar off as they drop into outer darkness. 

When the young man comes inquiring what he 
shall do to inherit eternal life, he calls Jesus " Good 
Master ; " but this is too much like flattery. Jesus 
knows well that his life falls far short of his own 
ideal of excellence ; and he says, " Why callest thou 
me good? there is none good but one; that is, God." 
It would be well if many of his professed followers 
were as honest to-day, and as ready to discard flat- 
tering titles : we should have fewer reverends, right 
reverends, and holy fathers. 

Akin to this, and springing in a great measure 
from his large conscientiousness, his intuitional 



JESUS WAS HONEST. 191 

power, and faith in his Messiahship, was his detes- 
tation of ostentation and show. " When thou fast- 
est, anoint thy head and wash thy face." " When 
thou prayest, enter into thy closet." " Let not thy 
left hand know what thy right hand doeth." As 
much as if he had said, '' Your soul knows, and God 
knows : cannot you be satisfied with this, without 
parading your deeds before your fellows ? " What 
he commended to others he generally practised 
himself. There is one notable exception, — that was 
when he rode into Jerusalem ; but this was done to 
fulfil a prophecy, and he probably felt it under the 
circumstances to be a duty. When he cured people, 
he frequently told them to tell no one ; when they 
called him Christ and the Son of God, he charged 
them that they should not make him known. The 
lofty position that he occupied in his own estimation 
lifted him above petty ambition. He cared but little 
about gathering follow^ers, or making a name ; for he 
was shortly coming in the clouds of heaven, and all 
nations should bow before him. Had he been politic, 
and ambitious of worldly success, he might, with his 
superior ability, have secured it : but he aimed at an 
infinitely higher position ; and though he failed, yet 
he achieved more than even his success could have 
given him. 

Jesus was a moral man, and the morality that he 
taught was of a high character. He drank the in- 
toxicating wines of Palestine, containing more alco- 
hol than the ales and beers of modern times ; but 
there is little question, that, had he lived to-day, he 
would have been upon the side of abstinence from 



192 WHAT WAS HE? 

all intoxicating drinks : the true nature of such 
drinks was but little known in his day. The moral- 
ity of Judaism is almost entirely negative. " Thou 
shalt not " is the burden of the Decalogue, and a 
stone obeys nearly all its commands. When the 
lawyer asked Jesus which is the great command- 
ment in the law, he never mentioned a command of 
the Decalogue at all, but the positive commands, 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," and " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and gave him 
to understand, by the parable of the Good Samaritan, 
that a man's neighbor is every one that needs his 
assistance. The Mosaic law said, ''Thou shalt not 
commit adultery." Jesus looks to the spring that 
feeds the fountain, the internal desire, and declares, 
'' He that looks upon a woman to lust after her hath 
committed adultery with her already in his heart." 
Jewish love did not go outside of his holy land : all 
outsiders were enemies, and there was but hate for 
them. Jesus demands that love shall be universal, 
and brings even enemies within its heavenly influence. 
He places before men divine perfection as their ideal 
of excellence, and calls upon them to be perfect as 
their Father in heaven. He will not allow men to 
live merely for their own selfish enjoj^ment, regardless 
of the happiness of others ; but, by the parable of the 
talents and the rich man, he shows that in his opin- 
ion those who have not been positive good-doers, 
who have not employed their lord's money to pro- 
mote the well-being of their fellows, can only look 
for everlasting condemnation as the penalty for their 
selfishness. The declaration made of him was, '' He 



CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 193 

went about doing good;" and by so doing he has 
charmed even those who despised his doctrines, and 
set a noble example for his brethren as long as our 
planet shall bear humanity as its fruit. 

But Jesus as generally represented by Christians 
is an impossible character. In his composition there 
is love without hate, charity with no mixture of 
intolerance, truth without the shadow of deceit. 
"He was without prejudice and partiality;" and, in 
a Avorld where every thing is imperfect, he was per- 
fection. Such beings exist only in fancy; and a per- 
fect Jesus is not the man that lived in Nazareth and 
was crucified at Jerusalem. 

Mohammedans make Mohammed equally perfect; 
and, by concealing the dark side of the man, we can 
present him as an angel of goodness. Let us hear 
what a Christian says of him : '' He was easy of 
approach to all who wished to see him, even as ' the 
river-bank to him that draweth water therefrom.' 
He was fond of animals ; and they, as is often the 
case, were fond of him. He seldom passed a group 
of children playing together without a few kind 
words to them ; and he was never the first to with- 
draw his hand from the grasp of one who offered him 
his. If the warmth of his attachment may be meas- 
ured, as in fact it may be, by the depth of his friends' 
devotion to him, no truer friend than Mohammed 
ever lived. He wept like a child over the death of 
his faithful servant Zeid. He visited his mother's 
tomb some fifty years after her death ; and he wept 
there because he believed that God had forbidden 
him to pray for her. He was naturally shy and re- 



194 WHAT AY AS HE? 

tiring ; ' as basliful,' said Ayeslia, ' as a veiled virgin.' 
He was kind and forgiving to all. ' I served him 
from the time I was eight years old,' said his ser- 
vant Anas ; ' and he never scolded me for any thing, 
though I spoiled much.' When asked to curse some 
one, he replied, ' I have not been sent to curse, but to 
be a mercy to mankind.' . . . His ordinary dress Avas 
plain even to coarseness. . . . His life was simple in 
all its details. . . . He would kindle the fire, sweep 
the floor, and milk the goats himself. Ayesha tells 
us that he slept upon a leathern mat, and that he 
mended his clothes, and even clouted his shoes, with 
his own hand. . . . The little food he had was always 
shared with those who dropped in to partake of it. 
Indeed, outside the prophet's house was a bench or 
gallery, on which were always to be found a number 
of the poor who lived entirely on the prophet's gen- 
erosity, and were hence called ' people of the bench.' 
His ordinary food was dates and water, or barley- 
bread: milk and honey Avere luxuries of which he 
was fond, but which he rarely allowed himself." ^ 
He drank no intoxicating drink, nor would he allow 
his followers to drink it. 

But, if any man thinks that this is a fair represen- 
tation of the character of Mohammed, he knows but 
little of human nature. Mark the lion and his family 
under the shade in the thicket, after dining upon an 
antelope : see his noble countenance, his shining eye^ 
his flowing mane : he is more beautiful than a gazelle ; 
playful as a kitten, as his whelps tumble over him; 
gentle as a lamb ; but, when hunger has roused the 

1 Mohammed and Mohammedanism. R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. 



JESUS INTOLEEANT. 105 

other side of his nature, he is the most brutal of 
beasts. 

When Mohammed was poor and despised, he was 
very tolerant; but as he became popular, and his 
power increased, his other nature, that had been 
asleep, wakened up, hungry for its prey. Then came 
the command, " Believe, serve, or die ! " and his fol- 
lowers massacred myriads in the name of Allah the 
Merciful. 

If Jesus had lived to see a million followers under 
his banner, he would not have been content to say of 
Chorazin and Bethsaida, '' Woe unto you ! " '' It 
shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the 
day of judgment than for you." He would have 
hastened the time. That he had the disposition, 
many passages indicate. If men refused to receive 
his disciples, or hear their words, they were to shake 
the dust off their feet when they departed, as a tes- 
timony against them ; and he declares it shall be 
more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah 
in the day of judgment than for them. If Moham- 
med had always been poor and despised, with a score 
of followers, and always as tolerant as he was at the 
beginning of his mission, we should still have known 
his intolerant disposition ; for his denunciations of the 
unbelievers reveal his secret soul. The man who 
could write, '' They who believe not shall have gar- 
ments of fire fitted unto them ; boiling water shall 
be poured on their heads ; their bowels shall be dis- 
solved thereby, and also their skins ; and they shall 
be beaten with iron maces : so often as they shall 
endeavor to get out of hell, because of the anguish 



196 WHAT WAS HE? 

of tlieir torments, they shall be dragged back into 
the same ; and their tormentors shall say unto them, 
' Taste ye the pain of burning ! ' " i — must be at heart 
a persecutor, and only needs favorable circumstances 
to make him one. When Jesus, as in Matt, xxv., 
represents the King as saying, "• Depart, ye cursed, 
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels," he shows in the same way the dark side 
of his nature, — an intolerant and revengeful dispo- 
sition. For who is this King that shall say, " Depart, 
ye cursed," to the doomed wretches who stand trem- 
bling before his throne ? It is the '' blessed Jesus, 
meek and mild." He is merely projecting himself 
into the future, when he expects to have the power; 
and we can see the use that he intended to make 
of it. 

But we are told, that, when the Samaritans in a cer- 
tain village refused to receive Jesus because he was 
journeying to Jerusalem, James and John wished to 
know if they might command fire to come down 
from heaven, and consume them ; but Jesus rebuked 
them, and said, " The Son of man is not come to 
destroy men's lives, but to save them." The prob- 
ability is, that Jesus felt at that time as kindly as he 
spoke. It must be remembered, however, that nei- 
ther Jesus nor his disciples had any power to call 
down fire from heaven ; and, if Jesus had given them 
permission, it would only have ended in showing 
them his impotence and theirs, and weakening or 
destroying their faith in his miraculous power. 

That Jesus was superior to Mohammed, there can 

Koran, chap. xxii. 



JESUS INTOLERANT. 197 

be but little doubt ; that he was a true friend and 
a lover of his race, there can be no question : but he 
who represents him as perfection is unjust to him. 
Most of his worshippers bow do^vn to a phantom of 
their own or their father's creation, while they reject 
the real man. When Jesus denounced the scribes 
and Pharisees and lawyers (Matt, xxiii.) ; when he 
cursed the barren fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 19) ; when he 
drove the cattle-dealers and money-changers out of 
the temple with a scourge (John ii. 15) ; when he 
told his disciples to sell their garments, and buy 
swords (Luke xxii. 36) ; when he said to Peter, " Get 
thee behind me, Satan " (Matt. xvi. 23) ; when he 
called the Pharisees bad names because they desired to 
see a sign of his Messiahship (Matt. xvi. 4) ; when he 
said to the Syrophoenician woman, when she asked 
him to cure her daughter, " It is not meet to take the 
children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs" (Matt. 
XV. 26) ; when he called Herod a fox (Luke xiii. 
32) ; when his disciples failed to cure a lunatic, and 
Jesus said, " O faithless and perverse generation, 
how long shall I be with you and suffer you? '' (Luke 
ix. 41) ; when he indirectly called the Pharisee a 
fool who invited him to dinner (Luke xi. 40), — he 
showed very clearly that he was one of us, subject 
to like passions, as brute-developed humanity has al- 
ways been ; and that to represent him as a God-man, 
or even a perfect man, is to teach what even the par- 
tial record of his friendly biographers shows to be 
untrue. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MISTAKES OF JESUS. 

The mistakes that Jesus made were great and 
numerous. His belief in the miraculous was un- 
bounded. He constantly sought to increase that 
faith in others; and his doctrines on that subject 
have done much to produce the unphilosophic no- 
tions about the supernatural that so many entertain 
to-day. God clothes the grass of the field : he will 
much more clothe his children. He will give good 
things to them when they ask him ; but sometimes, 
as he teaches by a parable (Luke xi. 5-8), it is neces- 
sary to tease him, — to keep asking until they weary 
him into granting their request. If two shall agree 
about any thing which they may ask, God will do it 
for them (Matt, xviii. 19). 

Nothing can be farther from the truth than such 
representations. God does not clothe the grass, unless 
there is soil for the grass to grow in, and conditions 
have been favorable for the seed of the grass to 
obtain a suitable position in the soil. God clothes 
no grass in California from June to November, be- 
cause there is no rain. There are no good things that 
we can get by merely asking God for them. The 
price even of life is labor ; and no asking, or even 

108 



MISTAKES OF JESUS. 199 

teasing, will enable us to evade the unalteraLle laws, 
which regard the praj^er of the bishop no more tha-i 
the hum of the beetle. When men profess to sup- 
port orphan-asylums and hospitals by prayer, it will 
be found that extensive advertising does the Avork, 
and prayer obtains the credit. 

*-' If you had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you 
might say to this mountain, Remove, and be cast 
into the sea, and it would remove ; and nothing 
would be impossible to you " (Matt. xvii. 20 ; Mark 
xi. 23). All the facts demonstrate, that, if we had 
faith as a mountain, we could not say to a grain of 
mustard-seed, '' Remove, and be cast into the sea," 
with any prospect of its accomplishment. 

In accordance with these doctrines of Jesus are 
the prayers that are offered by the million, generally 
by people who mean well, and under the influence 
of religious sentiment, but undirected by cultivated 
judgment. All is natural, from the birth of a gnat 
to the extinction of a sun, the father of a thousand 
worlds. Here is a hill : a hard rock beneath it with- 
stood the fury of the elements for ages ; and thus it 
was produced. The people on the globe are as nat- 
ural as the rocks they tread upon. The Indian is 
what ages of wandering and war have made him ; 
and his disposition can only approximate that of the 
Anglo-Saxon by the operation of higher influences 
upon many generations. We are what India, Greece, 
Rome, Gaul, Britain, and America have made us. 
In many an American of to-day the shillalah Irish- 
man of a century ago occasionally crops out. We 
are more musical for the shepherds of Greece, who 



200 WHAT WAS HE? 

played on their pipes as they watched their flocks. 
The men who wrote Bibles developed the brain by 
which other men criticise them. A careful study of 
the New Testament and the times when it was com- 
posed shows that Jesus, his disciples, and Christian- 
ity were all as natural as the appearance of a comet, 
or the occurrence of an eclipse. These were once 
regarded as supernatural : every comet was a miracu- 
lous messenger, every eclipse foretold some disaster. 
The astronomer has removed miracle from the skies : 
the theologian will eventually remove it from reli- 
gion. 

Jesus prays, and teaches his disciples to pray, " Thy 
kingdom come." His followers to-day pray, " Lord, 
revive thy work." All such prayers are requests for 
a miracle-worker to perform the impossible. Had the 
persons who offer them lived in the carboniferous 
age, when the highest animals of the world were rep- 
tiles, they would have prayed, " Thy kingdom come ; 
O God, improve thy work ! " that is, convert these 
hopping frogs and scaly fishes into birds and beasts 
and men. God did improve his work ; but it took 
ages for the needed improvement to take place, by 
causes such as had been operating for millions of 
ages previous, and that still are pushing the planet 
on. The reptile was infinitely lower than the worst 
man ; and if God never performed a miracle to trans- 
form reptiles into men, but allowed the slow operation 
of natural causes to produce the result, why should 
we expect him now to advance by miracle low grades 
of men into higher? If the nebulae in the distant 
heavens are, under the domain of law, condensing into 



MISTAKES OF JESUS. 201 

suns and worlds, and only during ages that are an 
eternity to our thought advancing to life and intelli- 
gence, how can we expect human beings to be hur- 
ried by miracle ? 

Jesus thought that Moses and the prophets referred 
to him as the Messiah who should come to deliver 
Israel. At Nazareth he read Isaiah's prophecy, and 
applied it to himself. One of the last things that he 
did, according to Luke xxiv., was to refer to what 
was written in the law of Moses and in the prophets 
and in the psalms concerning him. In vain do we 
search the Scriptures to find any such passages : it is 
only by violent and unfair interpretations that any 
passage in the Old Testament can be made into a 
prediction of the Nazarene. 

The prophecy that is supposed most clearly to refer 
to Jesus is contained in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. 
How distinctly, say some, this designates the Man of 
Nazareth ! The prophet looks forward over eight cen- 
turies, and sees him as clearly as we can when we look 
back eighteen centuries. " He is despised and rejected 
of men ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. 
He hath borne our griefs, and carried oirr sorrows ; ha 
was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised 
for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was 
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All 
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned 
every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid 
on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, 
and he was afflicted ; yet he opened not his mouth : 
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a 
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not 



202 WHAT WAS HE? 

his mouth. For the transgression of my people was 
he stricken." By picking out certain portions of the 
prophecy, and presenting them as continuous, there 
certainly does appear a portrait not unlike the Chris- 
tian conception of Jesus. But, when we look at other 
features of the prophecy, the likeness is not so clear. 
"- He hath no form nor comeliness ; and, when Ave shall 
see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 
He was taken from prison : he made his grave with 
the wicked, and with the rich in his death." We 
have no reason to believe that Jesus was destitute of 
beauty, and without form and comeliness : the prob- 
ability is that he was good-looking. Jesus was never 
in prison : he did not make his grave with the wicked, 
nor was he with the rich in his death. ' It is evident 
also that the person referred to was not some one 
to come, but a person who had lived. " He was 
despised," "he hath borne our griefs," "he was 
wounded," &c. 

When we learn that the writer of the prophecy was 
in all probabilit}^ a person living at about the close of 
the Babylonish captivity, we can see to whom the so- 
called prophecy probably refers. Dean Milman says, 
" It is well known that the later chapters of Isaiah 
(last twenty-seven) are attributed by the common 
consent of most of the profoundly learned writers of 
German}^ ... to a different writer, whom they call 
the great nameless prophet, or the second Isaiah, who 
wrote during the exile." ^ The most prominent person 
before the Jewish people at that time, who could 
properly be called a servant of the Lord, was Jere- 

1 Smith's Bible Dictionary, art. Isaiah. 



SUPPOSED PROPHECY OF JESUS. 203 

miah ; and the whole of the fifty-third chapter of Isa- 
iah, as far as we know, is applicable to him. 

Jesus can hardly be called with propriety '' a man 
of sorrows ; " though, like all other men, he was at 
times sorrowful. Jeremiah was emphatically a man 
of sorrows ; for he lived in the most sorrowful time 
that the Jews ever knew, and he sympathized most 
deeply with the sufferings of his brethren. In Lam. 
iii. 1, he says, " I am a man that hath seen affliction 
by the rod of his wrath." " Mine eye runneth down 
with rivers of water for the destruction of the daugh- 
ter of my people" (ver. 48). The very title of this 
work, the Lamentations, shows the sorrowful nature 
of the man. The treatment that he received at the 
hands of the people, as described by himself, is in 
perfect keeping with the statements in Isaiah : " I 
was a derision to all my people, and their song all 
the day" (Lam. iii. 14). " Mine enemies chased me 
sore, like a bird, without cause. They have cut off 
my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me " 
(Lam. iii. 52, 53). ''Our fathers hath sinned, and 
are not; and we have borne their iniquities" (Lam. 
V. 7). The fact is, that the prophets of Israel con- 
cerned themselves about what was important to the 
people of their time, and seldom looked forward to 
any distant future. If the Jews were at war with 
Babylon, they denounced it : '' Babylon shall become 
heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, 
and an hissing, without an inhabitant." We can 
hardly consider this to be fulfilled, as some assure us, 
when there are to-day 8,000 people on its site. When 
Rezin, King of Damascus, attacks Jerusalem, Isaiah 



204 • WHAT WAS HE ? 

fulminates : " Behold, Damascus is taken away from 
being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap " (Isa. 
xvii. 1). The wish seems in almost every case to 
have been the father of the prophecy ; and as in the 
case of Damascus, which has always been a flourish- 
ing city, both were often far from being gratified or 
fulfilled. 

Jesus himself was no better prophet than his pred- 
ecessors. Within the very generation in which he 
lived the sun was to be darkened, the moon to with- 
hold her light, the stars to fall, the sign of the Son 
of man was to appear in heaven, and all the tribes 
of the earth were to mourn : for they should see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory ; his angels, with the sound of 
a trumpet, were to gather his elect from one end of 
heaven to the other (Matt. xxiv. 2'9-34). Paul 
never expected to die, but to ascend with the elect 
when the angelic trumpet should blow ; and he com- 
forts the Thessalonians wdth this advent promise, 
which he evidently believed in consequence of his 
faith in the prophecy of Jesus : " We w-hich are 
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall 
not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump 
of God ; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then 
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in 
the air" (1 Thess. iv. 15-18). The early Christians 
looked daily for the coming of their Master. Are 
they slaves ? It matters little to be free : the Lord will 



JESUS INDOKSES THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 205 

soon come. The bachelor cares not to marry: the 
Lord will soon take him to himself. Why should a 
man hoard, when the w^oiid might be burnt up in a 
week ? So they sold their possessions, and laid the 
money at the apostles' feet for distribution among the 
needy. 

Eighteen centuries are gone ; fifty generations have 
passed : the same skies are over us that were over 
Jesus, and they look no older. The faithful still 
watch for the sign ; they listen for the trumpet's 
sound ; and death has found millions at their post. 
The clouds of heaven are only vapor, and the stars 
are suns that cannot fall; and the prophecy never 
can be fulfilled. 

The greatest mistake that Jesus made was his in- 
dorsement of the Jewish scriptures ; accepting their 
statements as true, and their doctrines as divine. 
The Noachian deluge presents no difficulties to him, 
and he believes in the ark as he does in the temple. 
Even the story of Jonah, that almost every Christian 
minister would like to cut adrift from the gospel- 
ship, Jesus accepts, but, true to his nature, believes 
himself greater than Jonah, and thinks the Caper- 
naumites should have repented at his preaching as 
the Ninevites did at Jonah's. By taking this posi- 
tion, Jesus saddled on the new religion most of the 
defects of the old. Adam and Eve were accepted to 
account for humanity ; and a childish cosmogony went 
with them, that even now fetters men's minds, and 
prevents their acceptance of the revelations of sci- 
ence. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were believed by 
Jesus to have held intimate relations with the Deity. 



206 WHAT WAS HE? 

Moses received his laws directly from him, and the 
Jews were his especial favorites. Thus the infinite 
soul was contracted to a span ; the universal Father 
became a Jacob, with a pet son, for whom he made a 
spiritual coat, while the rest of his children were left 
bare. It is true that Jesus taught much that was 
superior to the old faith ; he was far in advance of 
those whose highest conception of a God was Jeho- 
vah : but how common it is for the dead past to rule 
the living present ! . 

" We see with dead men's eyes, 

Looking at was from morn till night, 
When the beauteous now, the divine to be, 
Woo with their charms the living sight." 

In some respects, the doctrine of Jesus is inferior 
to that of Moses and the prophets. He taught that 
there will be a day of universal judgment, when all 
nations shall be gathered before him as he sits upon 
a glorious throne ; and he will separate them into two 
classes, righteous and wicked. The righteous he will 
welcome to his kingdom and everlasting life, w^hile 
he will consign the wicked to everlasting fire. 

Judaism curses the disobedient in his basket and 
store, his down-sitting and up-rising, and in all that 
he puts his hand to do ; but it never followed the 
wretch into the land of spirits, and cursed him there 
forever for the deeds done or undone during his 
momentary stay in the body. 

A day of judgment is as unnecessary as it is un- 
reasonable and its prophesied sentences unjust. The 
■universal King is always here, and he can, therefore, 



DAY OF JUDGMENT. 207 

never come in the clouds ; the day of judgment is 
every day ; no sooner is the deed done than the 
culprit stands at the bar; the witness within him 
needs neither to be called nor sworn, and can never 
be bribed ; the sentence is pronounced instantly, and 
the just award is not for a moment delayed. If men 
at death go to heaven or hell, of what possible use 
can a day of judgment be ? If each person's case 
took but a minute, more than a million years Avould 
be consumed by the world's assize ; and, while the 
criminals were waiting for their turn, the list of their 
crimes would be aAvfully lengthened. 

Mankind can no more be divided into righteous 
and wicked than they can be into wise and igno- 
rant, — none so ignorant but he knows something, 
none so wise but he is ignorant of what is important 
for him to know : so there is no liar who does not 
tell more truths than lies, no thief whose honest 
deeds do not outnumber his dishonest ones. The 
worst men respect goodness, and to the best men 
wickedness is at times fearfully attractive. From 
the worst man to the best, there is an infinite grada- 
tion; and every step is occupied by some human 
being, whom absolute justice could neither place on 
the right hand nor on the left. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JESUS. 

That a correct life of Jesus should be written from 
the scanty and contradictorj^ materials furnished us 
by the Gospels is manifestly impossible ; and, when 
persons undertake to do it, they generally succeed in 
writing a novel, or it may be a romance, of which 
Jesus is the hero. The persons who first sketched 
the life of Jesus never wrote a line till he was dead ; 
and they had no assistance from pre-existing docu- 
ments. When we think how in our own time re- 
porters will put sentences into a speaker's mouth 
that he never uttered, and publish them within 
twenty-four hours ; how difficult it is to obtain the 
exact truth in regard to matters that took place but 
yesterday, and even when we know the witnesses to 
be honest ; how we have of late discovered the fabu- 
lous character of much that had passed as genuine 
history unchallenged for hundreds of years, — we per- 
ceive the utter impossibility of obtaining the exact 
truth with regard to Jesus from the Gospels. Yet 
by familiarizing ourselves with the time and country 
in which Jesus lived, by comparing his life as given 
by the evangelists with that of other men who were 
in many respects similar to him, and shedding upon 

208 



JESUS NOT THE SON OF JOSEPH. 209 

it the light that psychometry, clairvoyance, and the 
facts of modern spiritualism, furnish, we may form 
an outline of this remarkable man much nearer the 
truth than the portrait generally drawn. 

It is not probable that Jesus was the son of Joseph. 
According to IMatthew and Luke, he was not ; and it 
is unlikely that the idea of a God-begotten child in 
any other than ti spiritual sense could ever have 
originated among a Jewish people, unless there had 
been some powerful motive to give rise to it. Joseph 
declared that he was not his father, if we are to 
credit the statements of Matthew and Luke ; and 
the natural inference is, that he was illegitimate. 
But who could believe in an illegitimate Messiah? 
As a consequence, the idea of a miraculous conception 
would arise in the minds of a superstitious class, and 
grow stronger as the doctrines of Jesus became more 
popular, his character more exalted, and converts 
were made among other nations, who had less objec- 
tion than the Jews to the intercourse of gods with 
mortals. The man who had never attained at a ripe 
age to any higher station than that of a carpenter in 
a Galilean hamlet,^ who allowed himself to be gov- 
erned by his dreams in the most important move- 
ments of his obscure life, whose only claim to notice 
is that he was the husband of Mary the mother of 
Jesus, was never the father of the daring, restless 
innovator, the bold and eloquent enunciator of new 
doctrine, who regarded himself as the first of man- 
kind, and all men as born to be his followers. One 

1 Nazareth was so small a place, that it is not mentioned either in 
the Old Testament or in Josephus. 



210 WHAT WAS HE? 

of his recent Orthodox biographers calls Joseph '' a 
simple-minded man ; " but this simple-minded man 
could never, in the nature of things, have been the 
father of such a man as Jesus, who was the very- 
opposite. 

The Gospels give us no idea of the personal ap- 
pearance of Jesus; and there is perhaps but little 
confidence to be placed in the description given of 
him by some unknown writer, probably of the fourth 
century : ^' His hair is the color of wine, and golden 
at the root ; straight and without lustre, but from 
the level of the ears curling and glossy, and divided 
down the centre after the fashion of the Nazarenes ; 
his forehead is even and smooth; his face without 
blemish, and enhanced by a tempered bloom ; his 
countenance ingenuous and kind ; nose and mouth 
are in no way faulty; his beard is full, of the same 
color as his hair, and forked in form ; his eyes blue, 
and extremely brilliant." Yet it is a little remarka- 
ble that this description is not that of a Jew, nor any 
one of the Shemitic race. It describes a person of 
pure Aryan type: it may be thought on the same 
principle that Chinese artists represent Europeans 
with oblique eyes : there may, however, have been 
another cause. But, although we know nothing of 
the personal appearance of Jesus, his mental charac- 
teristics are well known to us ; and races can be dis- 
tinguished almost as well by their mental as their 
physical peculiarities. We are what all our ancestors 
haver made us, and Jesus was no exception to this 
rule. 

The mental characteristics of Jesus are more Ro- 



MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF JESUS. 211 

man or Grecian than Jewish. The passages collected 
from his discourses, and put into what is called the 
Sermon on the Mount, and which bear the stamp of 
his genius, indicate great breadth of soul. It is easy 
to criticise them, not difficult to find faults in them ; 
but thej' present to us a man very different from any 
Jew that history makes us acquainted with up to his 
time. Portions of them but few of the most ad- 
vanced are abreast of even now ; and the spirit that 
animates them is broad as humanity. The man who 
speaks has mastered the peace question, and discov- 
ered that love is sharper than the sword, and more 
effective than the catapult. He lays the founda- 
tion for a brotherhood of man, in which there shall 
be none cursed hj poverty nor spoiled by riches, and 
gives that golden rule which in three lines contains 
more than a thousand volumes of legal lore. There 
is no puffing of Zion, no praise of Jerusalem, none of 
the Jewish pride that looked down with contempt 
upon the Gentiles; and it is easy to see that the 
preacher is higher than Moses even when he was on 
Sinai, and broader than the heritage of Jacob. The 
Jew was generally zealous of the law, and punctilious 
in its observance ; and the relations of Jesus on his 
mother's side were of this character. Jesus pays 
very little attention to ceremony, and sets the law 
frequently at defiance. He heals on the sabbath 
day ; he plucks ears of corn as he and his disciples 
ramble through the fields, and proclaims himself Lord 
of the holy day. He teaches that the kernel of the 
commandments is love to God and man, and the 
rest is but the husk. The Jews were exclusive : they 



212 WHAT WAS HE? 

had no dealings with the Samaritans, and despised 
them. Jesus visits them ; talks with them ; represents 
one of the best characters in one of his most beauti- 
ful parables as a Samaritan. He places humanity 
above doctrine, and makes charity lord over faith. 
It is true that his Messianic ideas may have had 
much to do with this breadth of spirit ; but a man 
less broad naturally would never have embraced such 
ideas. Had Jesus been the son of Joseph, there 
would have been a greater resemblance between him 
and his brethren, children of the same parents. We 
find from, the Gospels that they did not believe in 
him ; ^ and they seem to have taken no interest in him, 
save perhaps to try to restrain him as one who was 
deranged,^ until his doctrine had become acceptable 
to large numbers, and something Avas to be gained 
by acknowledging their relation to him. Even then, 
had it not been for the energetic movements of a 
few more like Jesus, they would have fettered the 
infant church with Jewish ordinances and supersti- 
tions, so that it never could have obtained a footing 
outside of the bounds of Judaea. Of one of his broth- 
ers, James, who became bishop of Jerusalem, Renan 
says, "- What we know of this James gives us an idea 
of a character so far removed from that of Jesus, that 
one can hardly believe that two men so different 
could be born of the same mother." ^ If he had said, 
be begotten by the same father, his remark would 
have been perfectly appropriate. Again he says, 
" The very surprising fact remains, that two children 
of the same parents or the same family should have 

1 John vii. 5. 2 Mark iii. 21. 3 Apostles, chap. iii. 



JESUS NOT THE SON OF JOSEPH. 213 

been at first enemies, should then have become recon- 
ciled, to remain so entirely distinct, — that the only 
well-known brother of Jesus should have been a sort 
of Pharisee, an outward ascetic, a devotee, infected 
with all the ridiculous practices which Jesus relent- 
lessly pursued." ^ His brother Jude, the author of 
the epistle which bears his name, seems to have 
resembled James very closely. 

Whence came the nature of Jesus, so different 
from that of his nation, and even from that of mem- 
bers of his own family ? Certainly not from Joseph : 
then from some other man. Who was he ? No 
common soldier, as the Talmud teaches. No Jewish 
maiden, such as Mary appears to have been, could 
have been tempted to such an alliance. That Jesus 
was of royal blood, an old Jewish record mentions.^ 
Some have fancied that an improper connection with 
the Herodian family is indicated ; but Jesus bears no 
resemblance to any one of that Idumean stock, with 
which we are acquainted, who could have been his 
father. 

Many views may be taken of the connection that 
resulted in the birth of Jesus, in perfect harmony 
with the innocence and chastity of Mary, in which I 
believe. That Mary in her youth was not always 
confined to the Galilean village which was her home 
is shown by her visit to the hill-country of Judaea 
previous to the birth of Jesus, where she may have 
met and married the father of Jesus, whom we may 

1 Kenan's St. Paul. 

2 Sanliedrin, f. 43, 1. Quoted by Keim in History of Jesus of 
Nazareth. 



214 WHAT WAS HE? 

presume was no Jew, a person of distinguished abili- 
ty, and probably of high position, whose marriage with 
the Jewish maiden was known to but few. 

It is supposed by sceptics that Jesus was born in 
Nazareth; for the taxing under Cyrenius, which sup- 
plies the motive for the visit to Bethlehem according 
to Luke ii. 12, did not take place till some years 
after the birth of Jesus. There may, however, have 
been another motive : the well-known prophecy of 
Mic. V. 2 appeared to require the Messiah to be born 
in Bethlehem; and Mary and Joseph, the father 
of Jesus having died, may have gone there for that 
very purpose, both believing that the child to be 
born would be the chosen deliverer of their people. 
Joseph not being the father of Jesus, we see the 
propriety of his conduct as represented in Matt. i. 22, 
and probable accuracy of the statement. 

The birth of Jesus took place probably in the 
spring of A.D. 4, and not 4 B.C. as has been gener- 
ally supposed ; Herod the Great having been dead 
for several years, and Archelaus reigning over Judea, 
Samaria, and Idumsea, subject to the will of Csesar. 
The old Herod, seventy years of age, in the last 
stage of dropsy, seeking to put an end to his miseries 
with his life, — what probability is there that he was 
jealous of a possible king of the Jews in the person 
of a baby in Bethlehem ? His son Archelaus might 
have been, if the child's father was of sufficient im- 
portance. 

The journey to Egypt was no fiction, though prob- 
ably made by sea ; and Joseph may have followed his 
business in Alexandria, then under the dominion of 



THE YOUTH OF JESUS. 215 

tlie Romans, where the Jews were numerous, and a 
portion of the city was set apart for their residence. 

When Archelaus was banished, Joseph and his 
family returned to Nazareth, the home to which they 
must have longingly looked during their residence in 
Egypt ; and the boy was introduced to the fruitful 
vallej's, the breezy limestone hills, and the beautiful 
and extended prospects, of that pleasant neighbor- 
hood. Here he watched his reputed father as he 
repaired the old houses, and helped to build the resi- 
dences for the new-comers. We may fancy him run- 
ning barefoot over the hills, gathering lilies and 
hollyhocks, which abound to-day in the vicinity ; 
playing with his brothers and sisters ; attending the 
village school, the teacher of which was the reader 
of the synagogue ; and on Saturdays listening to the 
law and its explanation, and watching the figures 
that flitted before his closed eyes, till sleep relieved 
him from the ill-understood and little-cared-for 
homily. 

Being a natural clairvoyant, whose spiritual facul- 
ties were intuitively exercised for the acquisition of 
knowledge, he manifested considerable intelligence 
at an early period, asking questions in reference to 
subjects on Avhich children of his age but seldom 
think. 

The visit of Mary to her cousin Elisabeth, the wife 
of Zecharias, who must have lived near to Jerusa- 
lem, was not the first that she had made, we may be 
sure, nor yet the last ; and Jesus, and John who 
eventually became the Baptist, must have had many 
opportunities for mutual acquaintance. The conver- 



216 WHAT WAS HE? 

sation of John and Jesus at his baptism shows a 
somewhat familiar knowledge of each other ; while 
their kinship and the intimate relations existing 
between their mothers render their close acquaint- 
ance almost a certainty. The fourth Gospel, it is 
true, represents John as saying that he did not know 
him ; yet even in that Gospel the statements of the 
writer show that he did. 

When Jesus was twelve years of age, he went to 
Jerusalem with his parents to attend a national feast. 
They had returned a day's journey before they dis- 
covered that the boy was missing. Other children, 
younger and less self-reliant, needed their care ; and 
they probably supposed that he was with their 
friends, and, in any event, was well able to take care 
of himself. Finding him not among their acquaint- 
ances, they returned to Jerusalem, and after three 
days discovered him in the temple, sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them 
questions ; they astonished at the mature intelli- 
gence that he displayed, and the boy delighted at 
the opportunity to obtain answers to questions that 
Joseph and his mother had been unable to give. 
When they chided him for having thus deserted 
them, he said, " Why did you seek me ? did you not 
know that I must attend to my Father's business? " 
It is not unreasonable to see in his reply a reflection 
of lessons given him by his mother, who had been 
preparing her son for the work that she believed 
God had sent him to do. 

From this time till Jesus was about thirty, the 
Gospels are entirely silent regarding him. Had he 



JESUS FBOM TWELVE TO THIRTY. 217 

been asleep during the whole period, they could not 
have ignored this portion of his life more fully. 
What incidents must have been crowded into those 
eighteen years ! — work at Nazareth; assistance ren- 
dered Joseph, so that Jesus became known as a car- 
penter; talks and walks with John; conversations 
with his uncle Zecharias; rambles along the shore 
of Gennesaret ; sails on the water with the fishermen ; 
companionship with persons of the opposite sex (for 
Jesus was of a loving disposition, and very attractive 
to women) ; and visits to Essene communities (he 
was probably too independent to become a member). 
The restless spirit of Jesus never allowed him to live 
contentedly at Nazareth, and his character is not such 
a one as could have been formed in a secluded village. 
No man could have talked as Jesus did without 
opportunity for development. Jesus was naturally a 
great talker ; and he must have conversed with multi- 
tudes, from the polished scribe to the unsophisticated 
fisherman, in the temple's court, at the synagogue's 
door, and in the fisherman's hut, long before he was 
thirty. The sons of Zebedee and Jonas never left 
their employment to wander around the country wdth 
an entire stranger who had no visible means of sup- 
port ; and Jesus was never permitted to oflSciate in 
the synagogue at Nazareth till he had previously been 
before the public, and become fitted for the work. 
There must have been an active life regarding which 
the Gospels are silent. The discourses of Jesus 
indicate an acquaintance with Jerusalem, and the 
parties there, that is inexplicable if we suppose him 
to have lived in seclusion at Nazareth till he was ba-o- 



218 WHAT WAS HE? 

tized by John. If we had the works of Josephus as 
they left his hand, we might know something of the 
movements of Jesus and John before the baptism. 

The superscription over the head of Jesus, ''The 
King of the Jews," indicates a political connection on 
his part that is not explained by any thing in the 
Gospel history. Jesus had a good deal of the lion 
in his composition, as well as the lamb. The death 
of both John and Jesus was caused perhaps as much, 
or more, by their political as by their religious move- 
ments. The high moral and spiritual position taken 
by Jesus, as reflected in the Gospels, may have been 
taken only when experiment had demonstrated the 
futility of all other. Rejected as a political Messiah, 
accepted eventually as a spiritual deliverer, all that 
portion of his life relating to his political movements 
would be prudently left out of the record, while all 
that referred to him as a religious teacher and spirit- 
ual guide, all that would assist in making him accept- 
able as the Christ, would be brought prominently for- 
ward. 

Josephus relates that Herod feared a popular ex- 
citement on account of John's great influence over 
the people. He says, " Herod, who feared lest the 
great influence John had over the people might put 
it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion 
(for they seemed ready to do any thing he should 
advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to 
prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring 
himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might 
make him repent of it when it should be too laie ' 
(Ant* xviii. 5, 2). There must have been a more 



PROBABLE POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 219 

potent cause than the mere fear of possible mischief 
from John's popularity: an actual political and revo- 
lutionary movement could alone justify the death of 
such a man as John ; and a rebellion produced by 
John's instrumentality, with his ideas of Jesus, would 
be for the purpose of making Jesus king, overthrow- 
ing both Herodian and Roman rule. 

It was said to Jesus at one time, '' Get thee out, 
and depart hence ; for Herod will kill thee." There 
could have been no reason for Herod to kill Jesus, 
or for the idea to be advanced, had his methods been 
always as peaceful as they are represented in the 
Gospels. 

Jesus, long before his public ministrations, discov- 
ered his possession of clairvoyant and healing power, 
which he exercised for the cure of diseases among 
the poor and ignorant by whom he was surrounded. 
This naturally led him to the belief that he was supe- 
rior to those around him, especially when added to 
the impressions made by the teaching of his mother, 
who had never lost faith that her son was to be 
the Redeemer of Israel. John, from his intimate 
acquaintance with Jesus, knows of his peculiar pow- 
ers, and believes in his Messiahship ; and he and 
Jesus probably made many attempts to rouse the 
masses to resistance against the Romans, — attempts 
that had to be made with secrecy, and, in conse- 
quence of their failure, are of course unrecorded 
in books written to show that Jesus was the spiritual 
Messiah, ''meek and lowly," and were probably un- 
known to the compilers of our Gospels. It must be 
remembered that the accounts regarding the times in 



220 WHAT WAS HE? 

which Jesus lived have come down to us through the 
hands of unscrupulous men, who had no hesitation 
about doing any thing to help their cause. The men 
who forged such a passage relating to Jesus as we 
find in Josephus^ could have no hesitation in remov- 
ing any thing unfavorable to him ; and their success 
in doing the latter would be as probable as the for- 
mer. One of the accusations brought against Jesus 
at his trial was (Luke xxiii. 2), " We found him per- 
verting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to 
Csesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king." 

There must have been much study of the so-called 
Messianic prophecies by Jesus, John, and their 
friends. At first accepting the common view of the 
Messiah as a political deliverer, a king who should 
sit upon the throne at Jerusalem, and this being found 
impracticable, they conclude that the needed change 
can only come by supernatural power, and the destruc- 
tion of all existing conditions. The prophecies of 
Daniel taught that the God of heaven would set up 
a kingdom that should break in pieces and destroy 
all other kingdoms (ii. 44) : the kingdom was to be 
given to the Son of man ; and all people, nations, and 
languages were to serve him (vii. 13, 14). The Mes- 
siah, evidently the same person as the Son of man, 
was to be cut off: then one like the Son of man was 



I Antiquities, xviii. 3, 3. Wliiston remarks, in a note upon the 
second chapter of the eighteenth hook of the Jewish Antiquities pi 
Josephus, that " after the death of Herod the Great, and the suc- 
cession of Archelaus, Josephus is very brief in his accounts of Judaea 
till near his own time." He tliinks the reason is because he had 
few good histories of the time before him ; but it may be because of 
what was unfavorable to Christianity having been left out. 



JESUS AS A SPIRITUAL DELIVERER. 221 

to come with tlie clouds of heaven, whose dominion 
was to be an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom 
one that should never be destroyed. " We shall 
never," they say, " be able to overthrow the power 
of Rome, and deliver our people from the yoke of 
the oppressor, by any ordinary instrumentalities. The 
kingdom of heaven must be established. The Mes- 
siah must first be revealed, who shall be a preacher 
to the poor, a healer of the sick, the despised and 
rejected of men, numbered with the transgressors ; 
but he shall come in the clouds of heaven, break in 
pieces all earthly kingdoms, establish the kingdom of 
God, and reign with his believers and followers for- 
ever." John believes himself to be the Elijah proph- 
esied of by Malachi, who was to appear before the 
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, — 
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and prepar- 
ing the way of the Lord, as Isaiah had foretold ; and 
Jesus is the Messiah. When he arrives at this con- 
clusion, he goes out and sounds the tocsin, " Repent 
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; " and that 
means that the Messiah is about to be revealed, and 
all eartlily kingdoms are to be destroyed. 

Hearing of the death of Joseph, his reputed father, 
Jesus hastens to Nazareth; but not long could he 
remain in that secluded spot. He learns that his 
friend John is baptizing in Jordan ; that the people 
are flocking in thousands to him. He leaves Naza- 
reth, and is baptized of John in Jordan ; though John, 
recognizing his superiority, declares that he has more 
need to be baptized of Jesus than Jesus has of him. 
Coming out of the water, he has a spiritual vision : 



222 WHAT WAS HE? 

'^ the heavens are open to him; " and he hears a voice 
(it may have been the voice of his father), ^' This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This 
encourages him, and nerves him for the grand strug- 
gle that is taking place in his mind : " Shall I be a 
pohtical deliverer, fighting my way to the throne, 
filling the land with violence and blood, but con- 
quering, and becoming a universal King? or am I to 
be a spiritual Messiah, despised and rejected, scorned 
by the rich and influential, but upheld by my Fa- 
ther, who will in his own time give me the throne, 
and make me Lord of all ? " 

While this struggle is going on in his mind, society 
is distasteful to him : he wishes to be alone till the 
decision is made. He accordingly goes into a wild 
region, probably between the place of baptism and 
Jerusalem, where he fasts for many days; for the 
mental struggle through which he was passing took 
away for a time all appetite for food. While in 
this condition, temptations of various kinds were 
presented to him. He became hungry. He believed 
himself to be in a peculiar sense the Son of God. 
Had he not heard the voice saying, " This is my 
beloved Son " ? Why not, then, be able to transform 
the stones into bread? He probably tidied the ex- 
periment, and then concluded that the suggestion 
was a temptation of the Devil. Wandering into Je- 
rusalem, he goes to the wing or battlement of the 
temple ; and, looking down a fearful depth into the 
valley of Jehoshaphat beneath, he is tempted to 
throw himself off ; for, if the Messiah, why should 
not angels bear him up ? His faith fails him. and 



TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 223 

lie considers this another temptation of the Evil One. 
He then climbs one of the mountains Avith -which 
Palestine aLoiinds; and, as his eye takes in the ex- 
tended prospect, there comes a death-struggle. '' Shall 
I give up my political prospects, by which I may 
make mytself master of the world ? or shall I relj" on 
God, and trust my future in his hands ? " Faith con- 
quers : the Tempter departs. "- 1 will be the deliv- 
erer of mj' people, of the world, not by sword or 
spear, but with infinitely better weapons. The 
kinr^dom of heaven is at hand ; the herald has al- 
ready been sent to proclaim it ; and I am chosen by 
the King of heaven to establish it. Rome rules the 
world ; holds the feebler nations with a death-grip 
that God alone by miracle can break. The only 
prospect of deliverance must come from a celestial 
source. I am the instrument chosen by God, and 
will do my part, if need be to death." The satanic 
personality and operation, as represented in the Gos- 
pels, probably arose from a peculiar trance-like con- 
dition produced by fasting and excitement. 

He goes forth and preaches, " The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand." John had announced it, in 
anticipation of the advent of Jesus, as Jesus preaches 
it in anticipation of the result of his own mission. 
Multitudes flock to hear him ; for he speaks earnestly 
and with power. He is a messenger — as he believes 
— from God, a mouth-piece of Jehovah. He cures 
with a word or a touch many who are afflicted, and, 
in season and out of season, preaches '' the gospel of 
the kingdom." 

The meetings in the synagogues every sabbath 



224 WHAT WAS HE? 

day gave him excellent opportunities to present las 
claims, of which he was not slow to take advantage. 
On one occasion he went, as he had frequently done, 
into the synagogue of his own village, Nazareth, and 
stood up to read. The Book of Isaiah was handed 
to him ; and he read a j)assage which shows what 
subject occupied his mind, and what he regarded as 
the most important lesson for his countrymen to 
learn (Luke iv. 18-19). " The Spirit of the Lord is 
upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach 
the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the 
broken-hearted; to preach deliverance to the cap- 
tives, and recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at 
liberty them that are bruised ; to preach the accept- 
able year of the Lord." When he had read it, he 
said, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." A study of this passage may have done 
much in shaping his life during the time of his pub- 
lic ministrations. By comparing this passage with the 
one in Isa. Ixi. 1-3, it will be seen how language 
becomes altered by being translated and copied. The 
passage, though a beautiful one, is no prophecy of 
Jesus, as we see when we read its connection in 
Isa. Ixi. 1-4-6 : '' They shall build the old wastes, 
they shall raise up the former desolations, and they 
shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many 
generations. And strangers shall stand and feed 
your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your 
ploughmen and your vine-dressers. But ye shall be 
named the Priests of the Lord ; men shall call you 
the Ministers of our God ; je shall eat the riches of 
the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast your- 
selves." 



SUPPOSED PROPHECY OF JESUS. 225 

It is the hopeful language of a poetic, proud, and 
bigoted Jew, near the close of the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, as he looks over his desolate country, its cities 
waste, its land-owners feeding their scanty flocks, 
ploughing their grounds, and dressing the vines with 
their own hands, where their ancestors had lived in 
affluence, wliile many of the best men are still in 
prison, and at the mercy of the Gentile ; and thus he 
encourages them : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me : 
he has commissioned me to preach glad tidings to ye 
poor; to heal your broken hearts; to proclaim liberty 
to those who are still captives, and the opening of 
the prison-doors to the bound. There is a better 
time coming, O my countrymen ! — the acceptable 
year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our 
God. He will give you beauty for ashes, the oil of 
joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness. Ye shall build up the old wastes, the 
desolations shall depart, and the ruined cities shall 
be repaired. Ye shall conquer the Gentiles, and 
make slaves of them as they have made slaves of 
you : they shall stand and feed your flocks, and their 
sons shall be your ploughmen and vine-dressers ; ye 
shall eat their riches, and clothe yourselves with 
their glory ; and ye shall be priests of the Lord, and 
ministers of our God." Such is the substance of his 
prophecy. 

It is evident that this has no reference what- 
ever to Jesus : the writer was comforting his coun- 
trymen with promises of a better time, that they 
were to live to enjoy. Nor was he dreaming of 
Palestine as it was in the time of Jesus, struggling 



226 WHAT WAS HE? 

helplessly in the iron grasp of Rome ; still less of 
any spiritual deliverer like Jesus, whose advent 
would herald, not the deliverance, but the destruc- 
tion, of his nation. 

The Jews in the time of Jesus, looking for con- 
solation in every quarter, probably did regard the 
passage as a prophecy of the Messiah, and as appli- 
cable to their time ; and when he closed the book, 
and the eyes of all were fastened upon him, they 
were delighted to hear liim say, " This day is this 
scripture fulfilled in 3^our ears. " What Jesus 
meant was, '' You see before you the Messiah. I 
am the individual to whom the prophet referred, 
and in me this prophecy is fulfilled." We have a 
very scanty report of what took place on this occa- 
sion. The probability seems to be, that, while Jesus 
spoke in general terms, they were greatly pleased, 
and said, " Whence hath this man this wisdom ? 
Can this be Joseph's son?" But, wdien he claimed 
to be the Messiah, they demanded that he should 
prove it by miracle, as they had heard of his doing 
in other places. In reply, he said there 'were many 
widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when there 
was a great famine ; but he was only sent to one who 
was a heathen. There were many lepers in Israel 
in the time of Elisha; but he was only sent to Naa- 
man, and he was a worshipper of false gods ; inti- 
mating, that, though he had miracles for even Gen- 
tiles, he had none for them. This roused their ire : 
the whole congregation rose uj), seized him, and at- 
tempted to throw him down a precipice ; -but he 
slipped out of their hands, and escaped. 



JESUS GOES TO CAPERNAUM. 227 

Jesus could no lonc^er remain at xsTazareth. He 
had already said, '' No prophet is accepted in his 
own country." Matthew's Gospel very honestly 
tells us that '' he did not man)' mighty works there, 
because of their unbelief." The deeds of cure per- 
formed hy Jesus required faith in the subjects of 
them ; and in a place like Nazareth, where all peo- 
ple were acquainted with the operator, his family 
and his history, the faith was not. In Mark we read 
that Jesus '' marvelled at their unbelief." To us it 
seems the most natural thing in the world ; and his 
inability to do many mighty works on account of it 
is equally natural. But, had this young man been 
indeed the Messiah, the greater the unbelief, the 
mightier would have been the deeds performed 
in order to overcome it. Could he have satisfied 
his neighbors that he was what he professed to 
be, we should have had more faith in him : failing 
to satisfy them, how can he satisfy unbelievers 
now? 

Along the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret Jesus 
had often wandered when a boy, and doubtless manj^ 
times bathed and fished in its waters. Almost des- 
olate now, they then swarmed with an industrious, 
if not intelligent, population. Jesus had been 
among them ; and the poorer people had received 
him gladly, assented to his doctrine, and he had 
cured by his remarkable healing power many dis- 
eases among them. When the door at Nazareth 
was closed, to this simple-minded, open-hearted joeo- 
ple he turned; ''and he came," says the narrative, 
''and dwelt at Capernaum," a small place on the 



228 WHAT WAS HE? 

western shore of the lake, between twenty and thirty 
miles from Nazareth. 

Walking by the shore of the lake after his arrival, 
Jesus s^es two brothers — Simon and Andrew, the 
sons of Jonas, who had been disciples of John, 
and with whom he was therefore acquainted — in a 
boat fishing. He promised, if they would go with 
him, to make them fishers of men. Going a little 
farther, he saw two brothers fishing, — James and 
John, the sons of Zebedee, — and induced them also 
to leave their fishing and follow him. Much was 
said on both sides, doubtless, before they left their 
homes, their families, and their living. 

On the sabbath following, he went, accompanied 
by his followers, into the synagogue at Capernaum, 
" and taught." His hearers '' were astonished at his 
doctrine." We are told that " his word was with 
power," and that he taught them as one that had 
authority. He who is most strongly impressed with 
the truth of his doctrine — all other things being 
equal — can most strongly impress others ; and one 
secret of the power of Jesus lay in his earnest- 
ness, — the earnestness of enthusiasm, that collects 
into a focus the powers of the soul, and melts down 
all opposition. 

In the synagogue there was a man so affected by 
derangement of the mind, that the people supposed 
him to be possessed of an unclean spirit. Departed 
spirits can exercise an influence over sensitive per- 
sons, so as to control their actions and their words, 
as mesmeric operators sometimes do those of their 
subjects ; and some of them exercise it to the detri- 



JESUS CASTS OUT AN UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 229 

ment of the individual. Any thing that can make 
the subject sufficiently positive, calling up the 
dormant will, breaks the spell, and liberates the 
captive. In the time of Jesus, many kinds of nerv- 
ous disease were supposed to be the result of the 
possession of unclean spirits ; and it would be very 
natural for sensitive persons, influenced by this 
belief, to suppose themselves to be in this condi- 
tion, and to act accordingly. When a person like 
Jesus came near, who was said to be able to cure 
all such persons by casting out the devils with 
which they were infested, his very presence, coupled 
with the general belief, would render them fit sub- 
jects for the exercise of his powers ; and when Jesus 
says with authority, " Come out of him ! " it operates 
like the '' All right " of the mesmeric operater, and 
the person is restored. Such cases are cured in a 
similar manner, even to-day ; as also, I think, cases 
of real spirit possession. In this case the man cried 
out, '' Let us alone : what have we to do with thee, 
thou Jesus of Nazareth ? Art thou come to destroy 
us ? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of 
God." He had doubtless heard of the estimate that 
Jesus placed upon himself, and talked accordingly. 
Jesus exclaims, — and doubtless in a commanding 
tone, — '' Hold thy peace, and come out of him ! " 
Then we are told that the unclean spirit tore him, 
cried with a loud voice, and came out of him ; which 
means that the man was violently contorted, uttered 
a loud cry, and then became calm. The by-standers 
were amazed, and said, '' What thing is this ? what 
new doctrine is this? for with authority command- 



230 WHAT WAS HE? 

etli lie even the unclean spirits, and they do obey 
him."^ Credulity sees miracles in the simplest, un- 
explained phenomena, as scientific self-conceit dis- 
covers fraud or folly in all that goes beyond the 
narrow limit of its province. In consequence of 
this, the fame of Jesus '' spread abroad throughout 
all the region round about Galilee." Such an oc- 
currence in Massachusetts, in these days, would 
hardly be heard of in the next village. 

When they passed out of the synagogue, they 
entered into the house of Simon and Andrew. In 
the house, Simon's mother-in-law lay sick of a fever. 
The occurrence in the synagogue was doubtless 
related to her. The wonderful person who had done 
this was now in the house. He who could cast out 
powerful demons with a word could certainly cure a 
fever. The patient is prepared. " Anon they tell 
him of her." He walks up to her, and takes her 
by the hand, and lifts her up : she instantly feels new 
life and vigor, and, going about her household duties, 
prepares food for the company. It is quite common 
for persons who have a fever produced by marsh 
miasm to be very sick, and yet in a short time to feel 
almost as well as ever thej^ did. 

By this time the village is thoroughly roused. The 
cure in the synagogue had been spoken of every- 
where by those who were present ; and now this 
cure of Peter's mother-in-law is noised abroad 
among the idle population waiting for the setting of 
the sun, when the sabbath ended. No sooner had 
the sun set than they flocked into the house, and 

1 Mark i. 27. 



JESUS HEALS THE SICK. 231 

gathered round it from every quarter. "Here is the 
man who can cure all diseases : come and be 
healed ! " The cry went out ; and a crowd of 
wretches, suffering from all the diseases that pov- 
erty, ignorance, and filth engender, gathered round 
Simon's door. Jesus went among them, and laid his 
hands en them, strong in- his ability to heal, as many 
of them were stronsf in the faith that he could heal 
them, — essential elements of success. The natural 
result is told in the second Gospel: "He healed 
many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out 
many devils." Other accounts, less likely, state 
that he " healed all that were sick " (Matt. viii. IG) ; 
that " he laid his hands on every one of them, and 
healed them " (Luke iv. 40). But, if Jesus had 
cured them every one, why not continue till every 
sick person in Capernaum was healed, and then in 
all Judea? This would have given evidence of his 
miraculous ability, and satisfied nearly all of the 
justness of his claim. 

But even Jesus must have seen that this could 
not last long. There were numerous cases that he 
could not touch, — paralj'tics whose limbs were still 
rigid, blind whose sight could not be restored, and 
obstinate devils who refused to move at the word of 
command. It was better, for him to go to new 
places, where the number that could be cured would 
be proportionally larger. In the morning he rose 
long before day, and went to a desert place. Simon 
and others followed after him, and desired him to 
return, telling him that all men sought for him ; but 
Jesus said, " Let us go into the next towns, that I 
may preach there also " (Mark i. 38). 



232 WHAT WAS HE? 

A good man, especially after death, is always 
credited \Yith greater goodness than he really pos- 
sessed, as a bad man has attributed to him more evil 
than he was ever guilty of. It is not surprising that 
the actual cures performed by Jesus led men to 
believe in cures that he never did perform. Had 
he been an ordinary healer, like Greatrakes or the 
Zouave Jacob, this would certainly have occurred: 
how much more when the person concerned was 
believed to be no other than a specially commissioned 
messenger from God for the very purpose of curing 
the maladies of mankind, — the Messiah, and this the 
very work for which he was sent ! We, therefore, 
naturally expect to find cures attributed to Jesus 
that he never made ; though who can set bounds to 
what can be accomplished in this direction by the 
operation of natural law? Even leprosy, a term 
used for various forms of skin disease, that is said 
to have been instantly cured by Jesus, may have 
yielded to the healing influence that he was able to 
communicate, though it may have taken a longer 
time than the record indicates, 

Jesus was now fairly at work, preaching and heal- 
ing in the various towns and villages of Galilee, 
followed hj crowds, and obtaining shelter in the 
huts of the poor, or sleeping in the open air when 
no hospitable door was open. In his discourses he 
blesses the poor, and denounces the rich, the law- 
yers, the pompous scribes and Pharisees ; he exposes 
their hypocrisj^ and shows the absurdity of many of 
their deeds and doctrines, for which they hate him ; 
but the common people hear him gladly. He returns 



CURE OF A PARALYTIC. 233 

after some time to Capernaum, the home of the four 
whom he had induced to follow him ; and at the house 
of Peter he was doubtless welcome. The mother 
of Jesus had also left Nazareth, and come to Caper- 
naum ; and hence Capernaum is, after this, called his 
home. No sooner was it known that he had returned 
than excitement arose, and the people thronged to 
hear his doctrine, and see the cures that he per- 
formed : they crowded the house where he was, and 
a multitude stood round the door as he addressed 
them. While he was speaking, four men came bear- 
ing a paralytic man on a bed ; but they could not 
come even near the door. They therefore went on 
to the flat roof of the house, uncovered it sufficiently, 
and lowered the man down to where Jesus was. 
Their faith was evinced by their act, and so was the 
faith of the sick man : they never would have done 
this had he not been desirous that it should be done. 
The man turned his wistful eyes on the master of 
health, the miraculous physician, humbly begging for 
the word that should send the strength-giving cur- 
rent through his nerves, and in full faith that the 
word, when spoken, would accomplish it. Jesus 
looks at him, the crowd still as death; those near the 
door tip-toeing to see what is taking place, those on 
the roof looking down. Jesus says to the sick man, 
first, " Thy sins are forgiven thee." The Jews held 
that men's diseases were in consequence of either 
their own sins, or those of their parents ; and Jesus 
speaks in accordance with this notion. The sins that 
caused this disease are forgiven thee. But .some 
scribes who were present were shocked to hear Jesus 



234 WHAT WAS HE? 

arrogate to himself a power that they supposed to 
belong only to God, and m their hearts they accused 
him of blasphemy ; but Jesus, intuitivelj^ perceiving 
their thoughts, asks them whether it is easier to say 
" Thy sins be forgiven thee," or '' Arise, and take up 
thy bed and walk." That they ma}^ know that the 
Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he 
turns to the sick man, and says in his command- 
ing voice, ''Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy 
way into thine house." With that voice, and its 
accompanying look, perhaps also accompanying 
touch, passes an electric thrill through the sick 
man's frame ; the dormant w^ill is aroused ; a current 
from the brain rushes through the long-unused 
nerves ; the man arises, takes up his bed, and walks 
out before them all, to the great astonishment of the 
spectators, who declare they never saw any thing 
so strange. 

The title, '' Son of man," wliicli Jesus uses on this 
occasion, shows the thought that is forever present to 
his mind. Unbounded self-confidence is necessary 
to the successful healer. Jesus possessed it. 

He had already chosen some disciples, in accord- 
ance with the practice of the religious teachers of 
his time ; but he had not yet obtained a sufficient 
number. The tribes of Israel were twelve; JNIoses 
appointed twelve men to search out the promised 
land; and Jesus must have twelve disciples, who 
shall learn to cast out devils and heal diseases in 
their master's name, and preach his doctrine through 
the land. The men who were chosen do not appear 
to have been of the poorest or most ignorant class. 



CALL OF MATTHEW. 235 

Fishermen who had boats, and hired servants (Mark 
i. 20), were far from belonging to the lowest class. 
The friends of Jesus to whom the Gospels refer ap- 
pear generally to have belonged to that class who 
are not crushed to the earth by poverty, nor spoiled 
by the pride and folly that riches engender. When 
rich men, or men in power, were attracted to him, — 
and some appear to have been, — he demanded such 
terms of them that they were dissatisfied and de- 
parted. 

One of his disciples was a publican, or tax-gather- 
er, — a class despised by the Jews, but who were at- 
tracted by the preaching of Jesus, and w^ith whom 
he seems generally to have bee^i on friendly terms. 

Jesus saw one of these, named Matthew, sitting in 
the custom-house at Capernaum ; and he said, " Follow 
me." He did so, having been probably prepared by 
what he had previously seen and heard, and became 
a disciple. 0]i the occasion he made a great feast at 
his house, and invited his friends the publicans, or 
tribute-gatherers, with whom he had been associated 
in business, and other persons ; and Jesus sat down 
and ate with them, to the great offence of the scribes 
and Pharisees wdio were present. Jesus was not des- 
titute of that Jewish feeling which led its possessor 
to despise all other nations, the Jews being the 
favorites of Heaven, and all others little better than 
castaways ; but his benevolence, enthusiasm, and self- 
esteem overshadow this to such an extent, that at 
times it scarcely appears as an element in his charac- 
ter. A Gentile who accepts him is altogether supe- 
rior to the Jew who rejects him. If publicans and 



236 WHAT WAS HE? 

sinners are friendly with him, he will be friendly 
with them ; and, if they will acknowledge him and 
follow him, they shall be his disciples, and sit down 
with him in his kingdom. But the pious Pharisees 
look on, and see a fine chance to criticise him. They 
whisper to the disciples, '' How is it that your master 
eats and drinks with publicans and sinners?" Full 
of their old Jewish prejudices, the simple fishermen 
know not what to say ; but Jesus hears the remark, 
and has an answer and an excuse at once. The sick 
alone need the physician, and he is among them in 
that character. He tells them that he came to call, 
not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I did 
not come to call you, who think yourselves righteous, 
but such men as these, acknowledged sinners ; and, to 
do that, I must go among them. The fact was, how- 
ever, that the scribes and Pharisees, who considered 
themselves righteous, would not respond to the call ; 
and sinners were the only ones that had confidence 
in him as a physician. 

Seven more were added to the number of his dis- 
ciples ; among them Judas, who subsequently be- 
trayed him to his enemies. It is not to be supposed, 
however, that the whole of the twelve were with 
Jesus as he wandered over Galilee, still less wdien he 
Avas in Judsea. Matthew probably returned to his 
lucrative post soon after his call. Peter, James, and 
John were his favorites, who generally accompanied 
him; but even they must have been compelled at 
times to attend to business at Capernaum, and Jesus 
seems to have travelled over Galilee occasionally 
alone. 



SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 237 

It was but natural that women should be attracted 
to the young preacher and healer. Being more im- 
pressible than men, as well as more affectionate, he 
must have influenced many whose names are all un- 
known. Among those known to us are Mary of 
Magdala, out of whom he is said to have cast seven 
devils. Her disease was such, that it required seven 
trials on the part of Jesus to heal her, each appar- 
ently^ successful ; but a return of the disorder de- 
manded a new effort of the physician. Another of 
the women was Joanna, the Avife of Chuza, steward 
of Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, Susanna, and 
others who were so interested in Jesus, that they 
occasionally accompanied him, and contributed to his 
support. 

On one occasion he collected his disciples and 
friends, and went with them on to a mountain, where 
he made a public address. We have two reports of 
this address, given in Matthew and Luke ; and, by 
comparing both, we may form some idea of the style 
and matter of his discourse; though it is evident 
that what Avas said on different occasions has been 
here collected together. Those who gathered round 
him were the poor, the despised, and many of his 
adherents who had been belied and persecuted on his 
account ; and his address abounds with consolation 
for them. He is thinking of the time when he will 
be universal King, and of what he will do for his 
followers. The tables are to be turned ; and those 
who had so long suffered are to be consoled, the 
apparent injustice that they had received is to cease, 
and they are to be rewarded for all that they have 
endured* 



238 WHAT WAS HE? 

" Blessed are ye poor ; for yours is tlie kingdom of 
God. Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall 
be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now ; for ye shall 
laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, per- 
secute you and revile you, and cast out your names 
as evil, for the sake of the Son of man. Rejoice in 
that day, and leap for joy ; for, behold, your reward 
will be great in heaven ; for in like manner did their 
fathers unto the prophets. 

'' But woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have re- 
ceived your consolation. Woe unto you that are 
full ! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh 
now ! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you 
when all men shall speak well of you ! for so did 
their fathers to the false prophets. Happy are ye 
when people revile you and persecute you, and say 
falsely every evil thing about you, for my sake. Re- 
joice and exult, because your reward will be great in 
heaven ; for thus the prophets who preceded you 
were persecuted. Ye are the salt of the earth and 
the light of the world. A lamp is not lighted to 
be placed under a corn measure, but on a lamp-stand ; 
and it gives light to all the family. Thus let your 
light shine before men, that they may see your good 
works, and glorify jouv Father in heaven." 

Some probably thought that Jesus intended to sub- 
vert the Mosaic law, and destroy all the old religious 
authority ; and, indeed, much of his preaching was 
quite revolutionary. But he had no intention to break 
with Judaism. Jesus was a Jew to the day of his 
death : had he lived longer, he would probably have 
outgrown his birth-religion. Luther never thought 



JESUS A JEW TO THE LAST. 239 

of leaving the Roman-Catholic Church when he 
commenced reforming its abuses. John Wesley was 
an Episcopalian at heart during his whole life ; nor 
had he any thought of forming a new sect when his 
zeal led him to preach out of doors to the poor and 
ignorant. Swedenborg took the sacrament from the 
hands of a minister of the Swedish Church just be- 
fore his death. Jesus is reported as saying, " The 
scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all, 
therefore, that they bid you observe, that observe 
and do." His denunciation of the scribes, Pharisees, 
and lawyers, is terrible, and was probably generally 
deserved ; but Judaism was to Jesus divine, and he 
felt bound to obey its laws, as did the early Chris- 
tians. His last supper was the Jewish passover. 

It was long before even Peter thought of preach- 
ing to the Gentiles ; and it required a vision to in- 
duce him to visit Csesarea, and preach the gospel 
there. When he returned to Jerusalem, his brethren 
contended with him ; and it required a long explana- 
tion from him before they could be satisfied. Peter 
never refers in his explanation to either the precept 
or the example of Jesus, who evidently never thought 
of establishing a universal religion ; for he expected 
the destruction of the world long before it was possi- 
ble for that to tal^e place. 

In his mountain sermon, Jesus is careful to let his 
hearers know that he has no desire to destroy their 
faith. "- Think not," he says, '' that I have come to 
overthrow the law or the prophets : I have come, 
not to overthrow, but to establish : for, till heaven 
and earth pass away, one iota shall by no means pass 



240 WHAT WAS HE? 

from the law till all be accomplislied." He does, 
however, in this very sermon, amend the old law, 
and practically overthrow it, by giving a superior 
law. " Whatsoever ye wish that men should do to 
you, do ye even the same to them ; for this is the law 
and the prophets." When that is fully understood, 
men soon cease to burn oxen, sheep, and doves; a 
priest professing to come between God and the wor- 
shipper becomes an impertinence ; and the holiest 
temple is where the greatest number of right-doing 
men and women are congregated. 

After Jesus had been preaching and healing for 
some time, John, lingering in the prison of the Castle 
of Machserus, sends two of his disciples to him with 
this message : '' Art thou he that should come ? or do 
we look for another ? " Believing Jesus to be the 
Messiah, a part of whose work was to be " the open- 
ing of the prison to the bound" (Isa. Ixi. 1), he 
must have been expecting for some time that Jesus 
would deliver him. Finding no prospect of this, 
as the weary months passed away, his faith began 
very reasonably to fail ; and he sends his disciples, 
probably to stimulate Jesus to operate in his behalf 
if he was indeed the Messiah, rather than to obtain his 
opinion of himself. It is probable, from the context, 
that the disciples of John said much more than we are 
told, and some things that must have been offensive 
to Jesus ; for, after telling them to tell John of the 
wonderful cures that they saw him perform, he adds, 
"- Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in 
me." He also declares, that, among those born of 
women, a greater than John the Baptist had not 



LITTLE K]S"OWN ABOUT JESUS. 241 

arisen ; but " the least in the kingdom of heaven is 
greater than he." No better evidence is needed of 
the utter inability of Jesus to transcend law than the 
fact that he allowed his noble friend to languish in 
prison, and die. Had he possessed the power, the 
barriers would have been instantly burst; consterna- 
tion would have seized John's persecutors; and he 
and Jesus united could have gathered the Jews into 
the fold as a shepherd gathers his flock. Jesus 
could cast out devils, heal the sick, make the bed- 
ridden walk, and restore the paralytic; for other 
men can do such things by the exercise of natural 
power: but, when a real miracle was demanded, it 
was never forthcoming. 

It is not my purpose to follow Jesus in his jour- 
neyings through Galilee and Judaea : it is impossible, 
from the Gospel record, to tell the order of his jour- 
neys, or the occurrence of his supposed miracles. 
Events are probably related as belonging to the latter 
part of liis life that occurred even before his bap- 
tism. The compilers of the Gospels did not inow 
the facts ; the original writers were dead ; and their 
only concern had been to obtain facts of a certain 
class in the life of Jesus, with but little regard to 
the time when, or even the place where, they oc- 
curred. I do not suppose any of the compilers could 
have told whether the public ministry of Jesus lasted 
for three years, or terminated in one, or knew any thing 
about his life between twelve and thirty. A hundred 
years after Shakspeare's death, and how little that is 
reliable could be obtained regarding him ! How can 
we expect certain information with regard to Jesus 



242 WHAT WAS HE? 

from men who lived so long after him, and who had 
to depend for their information upon documents that 
had been copied, translated, and recopied, and proba- 
bly altered by the parties who had done this at every 
remove? It would be easy to make an imaginary 
order of the events recorded in the life of Jesus, weave 
poetry into them and their connection, and thus 
make a beautiful life of a very beautiful and won- 
derful man ; but such a life of Jesus would shed 
more light upon the mentality of the writer than 
upon the personality of Jesus, and would give very 
little satisfaction to the thinker. 

Making headquarters at Capernaum, and his few 
wants being supplied while there by his friends and dis- 
ciples in that place, Jesus wandered from one Galilean 
village to another, healing the sick, talking in the 
houses, reading and commenting in the synagogues ; 
at times accompanied by friendly men and women, 
who listened to his words as if they were those of an 
angel. Sometimes he sails across the lake in the 
fishermen's boats, and sits by the shore and talks to 
them of the oncoming kingdom of God. In some 
places the people crowd around him to see his won- 
ders of healing, and hear the gospel which he preaches 
with a fervor, and elevation of language, that aston- 
ish them ; and ihej ask, " Whence hath this man this 
doctrine ? '* 

After travelling, preaching, and healing for some 
years in Galilee and Judsea, becoming daily more and 
more positive and demonstrative, he increases the 
number of his friends and multiplies his enemies — 
the priests, the scribes, and Pharisees, the rich and 



TRIUMPHANT ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. 243 

powerful — at every step. He lias no fear : he de- 
nounces his enemies with the most terrible vehe- 
mence and the most bitter invective ; and, in turn, 
they say he has a devil and is mad, and plot against 
his life. 

A passage in Zech. ix. 9, " Rejoice greatly, O 
daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; 
behold, thy King cometli unto thee : he is just, and 
having salvation ; lowly,, and riding upon an ass, and 
upon a colt the foal of an ass," seems to have been 
regarded by Jesus as a prophecy of the Messiah, as it 
was probably by the Jews of his time generally. To 
fulfil this prophecy, Jesus, a little before the time of 
the passover, rode into Jerusalem upon an ass, at- 
tended by his disciples, and probably by many of his 
Galilean friends, on their way to celebrate the feast. 
His friends appear to have been determined to make 
a triumphant entry for him into the city, as of a 
conquering hero. They spread their clothes in the 
way, and cut down branches of trees, and laid them 
on the road over which he was to pass. Some of his 
friends in the city, who had heard of his approach, 
came out to meet him, carrying palm-branches ; and 
with songs and shoutings of " Hosanna ! Hosanna 
to the son of David ! Blessed is the King of Israel 
that Cometh in the name of Jehovah ! Hosanna in 
the highest ! " they welcomed him into the city. 
This w^as evidently gratifying to him ; and, when the 
Pharisees wished him to stop the cries, he rebuked 
them. He must have known, however, that this 
could not last, and that the number who felt like 
this were but as a handful to the Judean multitude, 



244 WHAT WAS HE? 

who were as ready to deride him when opportunity 
offered. The cleansing of the temple, represented 
by the synoptists as having taken place immediately 
after this, was probably done long before. 

This triumphant entry must have greatly annoyed 
the priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Nothing 
troubles such men more than for a man to have a 
mind, a will, a doctrine, of his own, and especially if 
he can influence others to his own way of thinking. 
Jesus visited the temple, disputed with the members 
of the various religious sects and political parties, 
and was able, sometimes by his plain good sense and 
sometimes by his ingenuity, to answer the questions 
of those who would have entrapped him, and to repl}^ 
to their arguments. He must have seen Avhat they 
would do ; but he seems to have courted his fate. 
Unable to reply to his arguments, they overcome him 
by craft and by force. Although he professed to 
believe in the law, and to uphold it, Jesus was in 
reality destroying it ; and this the defenders of the 
old religion could see. In the old religion, Moses was 
the central figure. Jesus had pulled down Moses, 
and set up himself. The most strenuous upholder of 
Judaism was to be cast into outer darkness, if he re- 
jected this Galilean enthusiast; and the publicans, 
the Romans, the harlots, were to have seats in the 
heavenly kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
if they did but accept of him as the Messiah. 

The result was certain : the enemies of Jesus had 
the money, the influence, the law, on their side. 
They accused him ; and by the aid of a traitorous 
disciple, and the assistance of the Romans, they cru- 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 245 

cified him, and doubtless thought that his doctrine 
was crucified with the man : but the death of Jesus 
was the life of his cause. 

His resurrection put soul into Avhat was before a 
mere body, and sent it on its magnificent mission. 
With all the advantages that Jesus possessed, and 
all the elements of success that conspired to make 
him appear as the looked-for Messiah, he never Avould 
have been known to us as such, had it not been for 
his supposed resurrection from the dead. It was this 
that aroused the mourning women and half-dead 
disciples : it blew what before had been a mere spark 
into a rushing, mounting flame. It was this that sent 
the disciples through the world like fire-brands, burn- 
ing up the old gods and the old creeds as stubble. 
The ground was prepared for the seed of the Chris- 
tian gospel, which was sown in millions of hearts, 
honest and otherwise, and bore fruit that was re- 
sown till the harvest became wide as the world. 

Jesus was crucified on Friday ; and after hanging 
upon the. cross from three to six hours, appearing to 
be dead, his legs were not broken, as was the custom, 
but his body was taken down by Joseph, — a member 
of the Jewish Sanhedrim who was friendly to Jesus, 
— after he had received permission from the Roman 
authorities. Joseph had the body conveyed to a new 
sepulchre in his garden, which was quite near the 
place of crucifixion, and probably in the immediate 
vicinity of his private residence. Here, by the light 
of torches, — several women who had followed Jesus 
from Galilee sitting opposite the sepulchre, and watch- 
ing the proceeding with great interest, — Joseph 



246 WHAT WAS HE? 

wraps the body in linen, and winds a napkin around 
the head, according to the Jewish burial custom. 
AVhile wrapping the body, he discovers some evi- 
dences that life is not extinct, but carefully conceals 
this from the by-standers ; and after the body is pre- 
pared, and properly laid, a huge stone is rolled against 
the door, and all depart to rest over the sabbath ac- 
cording to the commandment. 

Joseph's mind is considerably agitated as he walks 
in the garden late that Friday evening, and thinks 
over the events of the day. ''I must rescue this 
man from his enemies " is his first thought ; and, as 
soon as all is still, with the assistance of a young 
man — his gardener, to whom he has intrusted the 
secret — he rolls away the stone, and they enter 
the sepulchre. Quickly removing the clothes from 
the body and head, they convey him into the house 
of Joseph, v/here by careful attention they are at 
length rejoiced to see the flush of life return to the 
cheeks : the eyes open, and Jesus the crucified is alive ! 
The questions then come to Joseph, " What can I do 
with him ? where can he go ? Should his friends 
convey him into the city, he may be seen by his ene- 
mies, and they would certainly put him to death, 
and I should suffer for assisting him. The disciples 
are living in a rented apartment, and it would be 
madness for him to go there. We mast get him 
well as soon as possible, and send him to Galilee, 
where it will be much safer for him among his friends 
and acquaintances than it can possibly be here." He 
converses with Jesus upon the subject, who consents 
to Joseph's arrangement. 



WOMEN FIND THE BODY GONE. 247 

By Sunday morning, Jesus lias so far recovered 
as to be able to move about. As before liis crucifixion 
he believed himself to be the Messiah, — a faith only 
shakeii by the pain on the cross, when he exclaimed, 
'' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " — 
so now he is, if possible, more firmly satisfied than 
before ; for has not God his Father raised him from 
the dead? For Jesus to think otherwise than this 
was impossible. 

Several women from Galilee, who had been at- 
tached to Jesus, among whom vras Mary Magdalene, 
— after resting upon the sabbath day, — came to the 
sepulchre very early on Sunda}^ morning, before it 
was light, to behold the body of him whom they had 
loved and revered, and perform the last sad rites. 
They find, to their astonishment, the stone rolled 
away, the body gone ; and some of them look in, and 
see the linen in which it had been wrapped, and the 
napkin for the head, lying just where they had 
been dropped by Joseph. They very naturally con- 
clude that some one has removed the body, and stand 
looking into the sepulchre and around the spot, 
much troubled and perplexed. The young man who 
assisted Joseph to remove Jesus, as instructed by 
Joseph, approaches the women, tells them that Jesus 
is risen, and requests them to inform the disciples 
that he is going to Galilee, and will see them there ; 
the intention of Joseph being to send Jesus as soon 
as possible to Galilee, before his resurrection be- 
comes known and his life endangered. The women 
run, as was natural under the extraordinary circum- 
stances, to carry the disciples word. We can see them 



248 WHAT WAS HE? 

burst into that upper room, breathless with the run 
and excitement. " Jesus is gone ! the stone was 
rolled away, and the door open ! We saw a young 
man or an angel, who told us that he was risen, and 
was going to Galilee ; and he wishes you to go there, 
and you will see him." The disciples stare incredu- 
lously : it is too good news to be true. Hope, dying 
in their hearts for days, had gone completely out; 
and now they do not wish to hope, and be cruelly 
disappointed again. The words of the women seemed 
to them " as idle tales." They argue with them, pre- 
sent the impossibility of the occurrence having taken 
place, and suggest the probability of some deception 
having been practised. All the women except Mary 
Magdalene return to their homes: but Peter and 
John resolve to see for themselves whether there is 
any truth in the statements of the women ; and they 
accordingly run at great speed to the sepulchre, John 
outrunning Peter. They find the stone rolled away, 
the sepulchre open, the body gone, the linen cloth 
lying in one place, and the napkin in another ; and 
then they know that the women were so far right. 
The body is gone ; but where ? Able to form no con- 
ception, they return. 

Mary Magdalene's great love for the earnest, lov- 
ing young Nazarene leads her to make a further effort 
to discover where Jesus is. She is dissatisfied with 
the meagre statements of the young man. She nat- 
urally asks, " How is he going to Galilee ? Cannot 
we go with him ? Will he not see us as well as the 
disciples? Perhaps, if I return to the sepulchre, I 
may see that young man or angel, I hardly know 



MARY MAGDALENE FINDS JESUS. 249 

which, and learn where Jesus really is." As she 
returns alone, she meets Peter and John on their 
way to the city. They acknowledge that the body 
is gone ; but they are still faithless with regard to 
the statement of the young man, and do not yet dare 
to hope that Jesus, whom they saw dead on Friday, 
is on this Sunday morning alive, and on his way to 
Galilee. 

They suggest that some one may have removed 
the body, and then deceived the women with the 
statement of the resurrection. They infect her with 
their doubts ; and she sadly returns to the sepulchre, 
looks in, and sees through her blinding tears the two 
heaps of white clothing at the head and foot of 
where Jesus had lain, which appear to her, in the dim 
light and in her excited condition, as two angels. 

Jesus, from his place of concealment in Joseph's 
house, sees Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre : he 
perceives that she is weeping, and resolves to comfort 
her. The young man provides him with some of his 
clothes, and he approaches the sepulchre where Mary 
still stands. Jesus says, ''Woman, why weepest 
thou?" She turns her head, sees Jesus standing, 
but, owing to the change in his clothing, does not 
recognize him; but, supposing him to be the gar- 
dener, says, " Sir, if thou hast carried him off, tell 
me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him 
away." Jesus says to her, "Mary! " in the old famil- 
iar tone to which she had been accustomed ; and she 
instantly recognizes him, cries " Master ! " and offers to 
embrace him. But he says, " Touch me not, for I an; 
not yet ascended to my Father," as he is still weak 



250 WHAT WAS HE? 

from the effect of the crucifixion. But he regards it 
as the result of his existence in the body: all his 
weakness will be gone when he has ascended to his 
Father. He tells her to tell the disciples to go into 
Galilee ; his intention being, not to see the disciples 
in Jerusalem, but in Galilee, as Joseph had suggested. 
Mary Magdalene, overjoyed at the appearance of 
Jesus, runs to obey his command, and Jesus retui-ns 
to the house. She rushes among the disciples, her 
face radiant with joy. " Our Master is alive ! 1 have 
seen him ! I have talked with him, and he wishes 
you to go to Galilee." The disciples do not, however, 
believe this. Why should their Master, if he has 
indeed arisen, appear to this woman only? Why 
should they go to Galilee ? Why did not the angel, or 
Jesus, or some one, appear to Peter and John when 
they were at the sepulchre ? 

During the day, all the disciples, and multitudes of 
the friends of Jesus, visit the sepulchre, but discover 
nothing but the linen cloth, the napkin, the solid 
rock walls. Silence is everywhere, and no clew can 
be obtained to the mysterious disappearance of the 
body. Joseph feels that every thing depends upon 
the most perfect secrecy, and has allowed nothing to 
be told but what appeared absolutely necessary. 
Jesus sees less necessity for this. 

The wildest rumors are circulating through Jeru- 
salem : the five women are walking from house to 
house where their friends are lodged, telling the 
strange news, " The tomb was empty ! Jesus is risen ! 
we saw an angel ! " Some are sure they saw two, 
dressed in white, one at the head, and the other at the 



DISCIPLES IN THE UPPER ROOM. 251 

foot, where Jesus had laid. '' Mary Magdalene has 
seen Jesus Inmself." Yesterday she was broken-heart- 
ed with grief: to-day she is wild with joy. The friends 
of Jesus . are looking up : something wonderful has 
happened. '^ He was the Messiah, after all. We were 
not mistaken : Israel shall be redeemed.*' 

The statement of Mary Magdalene on her return 
the second time, that she had actually seen and con- 
versed with Jesus, so impresses Peter, that he returns 
to the garden and the sepulchre, is seen by Joseph, 
and, being known as the boldest, most energetic and 
zealous, of the disciples, is invited into the house, in- 
troduced to Jesus, and Joseph and they consult as to 
the best course to be pursued with regard to the 
future. Absolute secrecy is enjoined upon him, with- 
out which ruin may come to all. 

Jesus, learning from Peter that the disciples do not 
believe the women, and refuse to leave Jerusalem, is 
determined to see his beloved followers in that upper 
room as soon as it is dark enough for him to leave 
Joseph's house with safety to himself and his bene- 
factor. That evening the disciples are assembled in 
their room, the door closed for fear of the Jews. 
They are eating supper, and all talking over the 
astounding events of the day. It is whispered that 
Simon, who is now absent, has seen Jesus, and talked 
with him. Two come in from Emmaus, and are told 
the wonderful news ; and in turn they tell of a per- 
son that they had met and conversed with, who had 
m)'steriously disappeared ; and now they are sure it 
was Jesus. Some are ready to believe an}^ thing; 
others are doubtful : but, whilst they are all talking 



252 WHAT WAS HE? 

in the most excited manner, Jesus himself, by Peter's 
assistance, appears in the midst of them, and says, 
" Peace be unto you." The suddenness of his appear- 
ance terrifies some of them, and they suppose it to 
be his spirit ; but he assures them by saying, '' Be- 
hold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself : han- 
dle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, 
as ye see me have." Having had no good opportu- 
nity to eat while concealed in Joseph's house, or the 
food being such as he was unaccustomed to, he is 
hungry, and asks them if they have any meat. They 
provide him with fish and honey, which he eats before 
them. After supper he converses with them, blames 
them for being so slow to believe in his resurrection, 
and commands them to preach his' Messiahship to all 
people in words and tones corresponding with his own 
overmastering assurance. Late at night he walks out 
with them towards the Mount of Olives, that being 
probably the direction in which Joseph's residence 
was situated : perhaps again with the assistance of 
Peter, he secretly leaves them, so that he may not 
compromise Joseph, to whose house he returns. 

As the result of the crucifixion, exposure, and ex- 
citement to which he has been subjected, added to 
the meal of fish and honej^, — very improper diet for a 
person in his condition, — he is taken sick, and, after 
lingering for some time, dies, and is secretly buried 
by Joseph. The disciples, finding that Jesus does 
not re-appear, or, among those who are present at 
his death, some having clairvoyantly seen his ascend- 
ing spirit, console themselves with the belief that he 
will speedily return, as he had promised, "in the 



JESUS KESUSCITATED, NOT RESURRECTED. 263 

clouds of heaven," with all his holy angels, and fulfil 
the glorious promise that he had made them. 

While Jesus was alive, for Joseph to have made 
public his resuscitation would not only have endan- 
gered the life of Jesus, but his own for harboring a 
condemned criminal : hence he keeps the matter as 
far as possible a secret, only allowing such persons 
to know as are necessary for the comfort of Jesus ; 
and they, of course, acquiesce in the necessity of in- 
trusting the facts of the case to as few persons as 
possible. Now that Jesus is dead, Joseph is equally 
secretive, as it would still be dangerous to have his 
conduct known ; and it must have seemed to him the 
easiest way to let the whole matter blow over, as he 
probably supposed it would do in a few days, when the 
Galileans had returned to their homes by the Lake 
of Gennesaret. 

Had Jesus actually risen from the dead, as Chris- 
tians suppose, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was friendly 
to him before his crucifixion, who boldly asked Pi- 
late for his body, and who apparently considered him- 
self honored by having it buried in his sepulchre, 
would have been the very man to preach that resur- 
rection with all the power of his soul, backed by his 
property and extensive influence. He would have 
been a Paul in the infant church, whose members 
would have w^elcomed him as a leader. Why is it 
that w^e hear nothing of Joseph after the supposed 
resurrection? His silence is suggestive. He evi- 
dently knew too much. 

The Jews, hearing the story of the resurrection, 
and learning that the body of Jesus was absent from 



254 WHAT WAS HE? 

the tomb on Sunday morning, very naturally supposed 
that the disciples stole it, in order to get up the story 
of the resurrection ; and, to show the falsity of this, 
some one invents the account of the Roman guard 
who watched the sepulchre, which we only find in 
the Gospel attributed to Matthew, and where alone 
we read of the bright shining angel of the Lord, who 
drove away the guard so that the women could ap- 
proach. 

The account of the appearance of Jesus to his dis- 
ciples in Galilee, as related in Matthew, arose from 
the fact of the young man and Jesus having sent 
word to the disciples that they were to go to Galilee. 
It may be objected that Matthew must have known 
that Jesus did not go to Galilee. But we have seen 
that it is impossible that Matthew's Gospel, as we 
possess it, corJd have been written by any disciple 
of Jesus, or till many years after his death, when it 
was reasonable for a Christian believer to think, that 
since an angel and Jesus requested the disciples 
to go to Galilee, and stated that Jesus would see them 
there, he must have gone, and they must have seen 
him. The statement that " some doubted " probably 
arose from the openly expressed doubts of Thomas, 
referred to in the fourth Gospel. 

The account in Mark of the young man in a long 
white garment, in Luke of the two men in shining 
garments, and in John of the two angels in white, 
sitting, came from the confusion that was sure to 
arise in such a time of excitement from the accounts 
of the women and Mary Magdalene, who saw in the 
dim light the linen cloth and napkin left by Joseph 



APPEARANCES OF JESUS. 255 

when he accompanied Jesus to the house. One of 
them tells the story of the young man seen in the 
twilight, and of what he said : another is sure he was 
an angel. They speak of looking into the sepulchre, 
and seeing something white : yes, another saw two 
white objects, that looked like men clothed in long 
white garments, suggested by the long linen clothes. 
These become eventually angels : for, after the resur- 
rection of Jesus was established, there could be nothing 
too wonderful for belief; and the message given by 
the young man, altered to agree with the third Gos- 
pel's account of the resurrection, is transferred to 
the " two men in shining garments," who in Luke 
xxiv. 23 are represented as angels. 

The appearance of Jesus to the other Mary, related 
by Matthew (Matt, xxviii. 9), may have arisen from 
his actual appearance to Mary Magdalene. Both 
being Marj^s, it would be very easy for the statement 
of one to be applied to the other. The story of the 
appearance to tAVO of the disciples on the road to 
Emmaus may have grown out of a conversation 
with some stranger familiar with their doctrine and 
with Jesus, possibly an Essene. Having lived in 
Galilee all their lives, and heard the new doctrines 
only from Jesus, they would be much startled by 
hearing them from the lips of a stranger ; and, after 
hearing of the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magda- 
lene and Peter, they conclude that this stranger 
must have been Jesus. The statement in Mark that 
he appeared to them " in another form," and in Luke 
"that their eyes were holden that they should not 
know him," are evidences that it was some other 



256 WHAT WAS HE? 

than Jesus with whom they conyersecL How could 
they walk and talk for hours with one with whom 
they were so well acquainted, and not know him ? 

The account in John of the second appearance of 
Jesus to his disciples eight days after the first, dur- 
ing which he told the doubting Thomas to behold 
his hands, and thrust his hand into his side, is so 
decidedly romantic, that, if it had occurred, we might 
reasonably expect that it would have been noticed 
by the other evangelists, as it does not seem possible 
that they could have failed to hear of it. The 
extravagance of telling Thomas to put his hand into 
the hole in his side, into which, if it had existed, it 
is not probable that his little finger could have been 
inserted, belongs to the domain of romance rather 
than that of history. Thomas may have been absent 
at the time of the appearance of Jesus, and afterward 
have made the sceptical remark attributed to him ; 
and out of this may have grown the belief that Jesus 
did subsequently give him the opportunity that he 
desired, or he may afterward have seen Jesus at 
Joseph's house. 

Of the appearances related in the twenty-first chap- 
ter of John, it is evident that they were written by 
some other hand than that which wrote the body of 
the Gospel. The genuineness of this part of the 
Gospel has been doubted by manj^ of the best critics ; 
among them Grotius, Le Clerc, Sender, Paulus, 
Bertholdt, Liicke, De Wette, and Schott. The words 
that precede this chapter were evidently intended to 
conclude the Gospel : " And many other signs truly 
did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are 



Paul's statement of the resurkection. 257 

not written in this book : but these are written that 
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God ; and that, believing, ye might have life in his 
name." What man would think of writing this, and 
then writing a number of other things that Jesus did 
and said ? If he had concluded to write more, he 
would have placed them at the close of his book, 
where they evidently belong. This addition to the 
Gospel was probably written by some one who held 
the not unreasonable opinion, that, if Jesus was on 
the earth for forty days previous to his ascension, he 
must have been employed ; and he welcomes this 
tradition to fill up the immense gap that previously 
existed. 

Paul's vision of Jesus needs no other explanation 
than visions of Jesus which have been repeatedly 
seen by both Catholics and Protestants, and many 
of them by persons now living. A well-known law- 
yer in Boston informs me that he has had many vis- 
ions of Jesus as he is generally represented by artists, 
but can form no idea of the cause. Were he as 
fanatical as he is calm and sensible, these visions 
might lead him to suppose himself Heaven's favorite, 
for whose glorification they were vouchsafed. 

The statement made by Paul alone, that above five 
hundred brethren saw Jesus at once, is a good illus- 
tration of the development of stories of that kind 
from a little seed of truth ; since there were only 
one hundred and twenty believers after the ascen- 
sion (Acts i. 16). Paul had evidently been imposed 
upon. 

Accepting this theory, we can see the necessity for 



258 WHAT WAS HE? 

secrecy tliat must have been imposed upon Joseph 
and all who were familiar with the facts ; and this 
necessity would inevitably be the cause of misleading 
statements by the parties concerned, so as to baffle 
their enemies, and insure the safety of Jesus and 
themselves. This would account to some extent 
for the confused statements which we find in the 
Gospels, Avhere we have apparently but a little told 
of what was really known. This accounts for the 
sudden appearance and disappearance of Jesus : it 
explains why he only appeared to the believers, and 
even to them but seldom and for a short time. The 
mother of Jesus may have been sick in consequence 
of the agony that she must have endured at the death 
of her son and her hopes; and Jesus could not visit 
her. It accounts, in short, in a rational and simple 
manner, for most of the statements found in the 
Gospels, acknowledging the general truthfulness of 
the parties concerned ; while the commonly-received 
opinion of a resurrected flesh-and-blood man, and 
his ascension to heaven, is so unreasonable and un- 
natural, that it may be safely said the increasing 
intelligence of mankind must eventually destroy all 
confidence in its truth. 

Those who did see Jesus, with but few exceptions, 
honestly thought that God had raised him from the 
dead; Joseph not caring to reveal his share in 
the transaction. They went forth preaching Jesus the 
Messiah, known " by miracles, wonders, and signs 
which God did by him," who was " numbered with the 
transgressors," by wicked hands crucified and slain, 
but raised up by God, " who would not suffer his 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIAKITY INTERESTING. 259 

Holy One to see corruption ; " and of this they were 
witnesses, and were willing to die in attestation of 
the truth of their statements. They preached with 
power ; for they were honest and earnest as men 
struggling for life. They preached the almost imme- 
diate destruction of the world ; and the converts 
gave their property to help the needy, which could 
not but cause the Christian society to grow with great 
rapidity. Effete Judaism and corrupt Paganism, as 
they died, fed the sapling that sprang- from their 
decaying trunks : it spread over the civilized world, 
and thousands of millions dwelt under its branches, 
and ate of its fruit. 

Christianity, with all its defects, is, in many re- 
spects, the noblest religious tree that our planet has 
ever produced ; and though humanity will live to see 
the last twig die that shall spring from its decaying 
roots, — the religious sentiment in man, the soil from 
which all religions spring, giving birth to higher 
forms better adapted to man's more developed 
nature, — yet its history will be an object of interest 
to thinkers who shall live here millions of years after 
we have departed. 



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